


from perdition

by amorremanet



Series: “three sentence” AU meme fics: VLD [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (of Adam and Shiro by Adam's father), Abusive Sendak (Voltron), Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Alternate Universe - Supernatural (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Angel Keith (Voltron), Crossover, Demon Lotor (Voltron), Demon Sendak (Voltron), First Meetings, Good Lotor (Voltron), Hell Trauma, Jewish Adam (Voltron), Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Look: Shiro is Dean in this AU so he went to Hell & was tortured, M/M, Minor Adam/Shiro (Voltron), Past Abuse, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Sendak/Shiro (Voltron), Past Torture, Resurrected Shiro (Voltron), Resurrection, Reunions, Sendak is Alastair so he did the torturing & thinks he is in love with Shiro, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Shiro would prefer not to & trusts exactly one (1) demon namely……
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:30:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: When Shiro’s Crossroads Deal came due, he fully expected to stay trapped in Hell forever. Instead, something yanks him out and throws his soul back into a perfectly healed body. Some of the only clues he has: a brilliantly red handprint, branded on his shoulder and bicep, and radios acting up around him.Fortunately, Shiro’s family are some of the best hunters alive, and his best friend is a demon who stands against his infernal brethren. Together, they should be able to figure out who pulled Shiro out of Hell—because the answer cannot involve something as ridiculous asangels, thank you, Uncle Mitch—and what the creature wants with him.Good things don’t justhappenlike this, after all. Not in Shiro’s experience. He doesn’t care how much this so-called“Leliel”disagrees.Shiro frowns. “What are you, then? Some kind of extra-dramatic ghost?”A chorus of voices hums through the radio as if the creature’s weighing several options.“You would not believe me if I told you of my true nature, Takashi Shirogane.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ourviolentends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourviolentends/gifts).



> Here, we see what is probably my most egregious deliberate failure to understand the definition of, “three sentences” to date. Because this was very much prompted as part of **[the latest round](https://twitter.com/amorxremanet/status/1120013718438469635?s=21)** of that good old, “Give me a pairing and an AU, and I write a three-sentence fic” meme that’s been going around Twitter, and…… Well, there are definitely three sentences.
> 
> There are also several more sentences, after the three in question, but.… You can’t say that there aren’t three sentences present in this fic.
> 
> Anyway, hi, I was Destiel garbage, back when I still watched SPN, and this fic is pretty much, “What if ‘Lazarus Rising’ but with Shiro as Dean and Keith as Cas [whose angel name is Leliel, in this reality, because I thought the Leliel of lore suited Keith nicely].”
> 
> Also featuring Adam as Sam, Lotor as Ruby (but Lotor Is Good Actually because Ruby Is Good Actually because I still love Ruby and I choose to change what canon did to her), Sendak as Alastair, Iverson and Shiro’s parents as different aspects of Bobby, and Adam’s late shit-bag father as John.
> 
> In addition to them, there are so many other characters who I have placed throughout the world (e.g., Ulaz is Tessa but with differences that get mentioned in chapter three; Hunk and Lance are Chuck and Becky, respectively, though they’ve also been best friends since childhood; the Holts are the Harvelles, except Bill!Sam didn’t die when Jacob screwed him over and Ash!Matt is Jo!Pidge’s brother, but Ellen!Colleen will still fuck you up; James and Kinkade are Andy Gallagher and Jake Talley respectively, except they, Ava!Rizavi, and Lily!Leifsdottir all lived because I said so; etc.)—but aside from a handful of stray mentions, most of said characters are Not Appearing In This Fic. This is all A Thing because I’m an inveterate world-building gremlin.
> 
> Some SPN characters just remained themselves, either because I love them too much to change them (my wife, Bela Talbot), I couldn’t really think of anyone from VLD who really fit the part (Azazel), or both (Lilith; Viktor Henriksen of the infinite spellings of his name, who is alive and a hunter now because I like it more than what happens to Viktor in SPN canon).
> 
> Additionally, a lot of the lore and backstory about angels and demons and all that is based more on my old headcanons than on anything that SPN has done since I stopped watching. So, for example, Azazel is one of the angels who rebelled with Lucifer, rather than the “Princes of Hell” thing that I learned about while canon fact-checking something. Why? Because it’s my fic, and doing this made me happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to take a moment to formally apologize for the first scene and how the prose is only a couple shades less purple than canon!Lotor’s skin. All I have to say for myself is that said scene is set in Hell, where reality is notably described as being not-concrete (c.f., “You’re just not getting deep enough. Well, you lack the resources. Reality is just, I don’t know, too concrete up here.”—Alastair, “On the Head of a Pin”), which I interpret as meaning, “Malleable, and something like what would happen Guillermo del Toro, Junji Ito, and the anthropomorphic incarnations of _Perfect Blue_ , _Black Swan_ , the entirety of the _Ring_ and _Ju-On/Grudge_ franchises, and Stanley Kubrick’s _The Shining_ all got lost in Silent Hill together, with a significant helping of _Hellraiser_ because ya gotta.”
> 
> Unfortunately, for me, attempting to capture that feeling of Hell means that the prose ends up getting pretty purple. This was true when I wrote **“[Lost My Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/188382)”** (a massive excuse for Dean-whump that purports itself to be a character study with endgame Dean/Cas), and it remains true now. The prose stops being so completely up itself once Keith yanks Shiro out of the Hot-Box, though.

Pain—it drowns out the universe, the clearest thing that Hell allows Shiro to remember.

Pain—anguish and misery, torment and suffering, all burning and writhing through him, through everything he ever was or will be, turning everything white hot, threatening to immolate Shiro from the inside out, rending him apart and gouging into the pulp of his memories, his feelings, himself and his soul and everything he thinks he is.

Pain—a symphony of pain, both his own and that of others, billions upon billions of voices, all screaming themselves raw, screaming until they bleed or until a demon rips their neck open, then they go silent until that missing throat grows back—and through it all, Shiro’s own voice, his own wails and screams, feeling all of them deep inside his being but never hearing them because they get swept away, lost in the chorus of agony.

Pain—even after Sendak unbinds his wrists, even after he lets Shiro off the rack, even after he picks up his first blade, even after Sendak curls his enormous, taloned, iceberg hands around Shiro’s shoulders, whispering how proud he is in that drawling, oil spill voice—sighing with that frozen breath and murmuring how delighted he is to have received this unspeakable honor—this exquisite privilege—this most sacred duty to instruct someone with Shiro’s glimmering potential, unhewn but obviously unparalleled—and Shiro’s soul shuddering like a death rattle as Sendak promises that he will learn to love this, someday, because they’re kindred spirits and Shiro’s the only soul in so many untold centuries who’s managed to inflame Sendak like he has.

Pain—clawing Shiro up, splitting him open like a pomegranate, hollowing him out—Sendak’s razors singing through him, his own blades slicing through other souls—the souls of people who Shiro probably wouldn’t have minded, topside, and sometimes, the souls of people who he helped save—and each of them spills out more secrets and crimes than he can count. Is this who he fought for? Are these the people he spent his life defending, who he risked himself to protect? Did he hunt the monsters after all, or did the real ones escape from retribution?

Pain—and eventually, its absence. Shiro’s seen too much, done too much. Heavily, his soul drags through motions he knows well, empty and throbbing, with a black hole pulsing where he once kept his heart.

As he waits for Sendak to bring him the next victim—to start their next lesson together—Shiro stares long into the Abyss around him, into the living shades and endless black, the fires that burn with neither heat nor light but only a darkness to which you become accustomed.

So many souls, crying out for relief they don’t deserve. So many souls, teeming with sins upon innumerable sins upon all the ways that human beings happily destroy themselves. So many rancid souls, huddled together or tearing themselves apart, carrying out the eternal torture or stretched out on a rack and weeping as they beg, _“Set me free—please, let me go—please, I wasn’t that bad—let me down, I’ll do anything you ask…”_

Tremors wrack Shiro, even though he has no body, only an illusion that Hell projects so that he’ll feel everything. Digging at his shoulder, he can’t tell if he’s growing talons. Memories rush up to meet him as he kneads the soul-sinews still holding him together: the time when he and Adam were seven, and Shiro didn’t listen to Uncle Mitch and fell out of a tree… The time when he and Adam were twelve, hunting their first werewolf with their fathers, and Shiro shoved Adam back so the beast couldn’t get at him… The time when he and Adam were fifteen and Adam’s father made them practice escaping from coffins… The time when he and Adam were nineteen, and three days after Adam left for Stanford—when they knew he’d really gone to Stanford and he wasn’t coming back—Jacob West dislocated Shiro’s shoulder in a drunken rage and snarled, _“If you love my son so much, why didn’t you do more to stop him leaving?”_

Now, more than ever, Shiro knows: he’s never getting out of here because Sendak’s right. Shiro belongs in Hell; he always has.

He coughs, trying to stop the tears. Before Sendak returns, he needs to stop. Sendak won’t let Shiro get away with crying. But the grief pours out him, hotter than anything he’s ever known, spilling like it he’ll never stop it and steaming as it hits his frozen cheeks. Sobs howl out of him like he’s a dying animal, not a forsaken human. No, no—he can’t fall apart. Can’t let himself start dissipating. Next stop after that, you turn into demonic smoke and hope for a quick death, unless you’re strong enough to withstand that kind of life, like Lotor.

Shiro’s razor clatters, dropping from his hands. He buries his face in his palms—not a moment too soon.

Light blazes into Hell. Not darkness visible, but honest light, brilliant and scorching through the demons, and the souls, and the eternal torment. Commotion erupts, blades clattering while voices cry out threats in languages that Shiro doesn’t understand. Whatever they’re speaking, it doesn’t sound human. Crumpling in on himself, Shiro shuts his eyes. No one would come for him—but something flutters around him, like wings. Sendak shrieks, gnashing his teeth and screaming, _“Hold fast, beloved, I’ll save you”_ —but there’s a clash of metal, then a rush and a _pow!_ like a sonic boom, and Sendak’s screaming grows faint, further and further away.

Fire grabs onto Shiro’s shoulder. It burns, but doesn’t hurt, warmth emanating through his body. Yanking him up toward the light, it feels like a cleansing, like a long shower after a longer hunt, and above every other noise, a voice rings out, clear as a bell, _“Takashi Shirogane is saved.”_

  


* * *

  


Shiro coughs. He gasps. Breath shudders into him, which shouldn’t be happening because he’s dead.

Isn’t he?

His eyes crack open, but he can’t see anything. Only darkness. Hell is darkness, too—but he could see, in Hell.

“ _Help_ ,” he rasps, his throat dry and cracking.

Palming around his hips, Shiro finds his pockets. He didn’t have pockets in Hell. Or clothes, for that matter. Disembodied souls don’t really need them.

In his pocket, amidst what feels like a couple of hex-bags, sits a lighter. Flicking it on, Shiro can make out the whorled patterns of wood. The groan that bursts out of him makes his entire body shake as if he’s freezing his ass off in a room full of ghosts.

“Fuck you, Jacob West,” Shiro mutters, shoving his lighter away.

A few deep breaths helps Shiro recall those old lessons perfectly. Don’t panic. Keep breathing slowly. Anxiety leads to hyperventilating, which wastes whatever oxygen he has. Shimmying carefully, Shiro works out of the leather jacket and over-shirt he’s wearing. He gets his t-shirt over his face and ties it up so he won’t inhale (as much) dirt while he gets himself out of this.

“Seriously, though…” Grumbling, Shiro palms at the roof of his coffin. He nudges his toes up into another section. A few places bow out, so Shiro kicks one of them until the wood stops fighting him and breaks. As earth siphons in around his ankles, Shiro hisses, “ _Fuck you_ , Jacob West.”

In all likelihood, Shiro’s doing himself no favors by saying things like this. He shouldn’t call any unnecessary misfortune down on himself by cursing a dead man, not even the one who happily shoved his own teenage son and Shiro into makeshift coffins, then buried them and made them dig their own ways back to freedom. As Shiro claws up through the loosened earth, he wonders if Adam’s father can even hear him, down in Hell. Probably not, though Shiro would say this to Jacob’s face, if he had the opportunity right now. Propriety be damned, Shiro would cuss Jacob out for putting him in the position to feel grateful toward the bastard who abused him and Adam.

Gasping, Shiro drags his head above-ground. Once he hauls himself all the way out, he topples over onto his side and yanks his t-shirt off. Sunlight warms the patches of his skin that aren’t too caked with dirt. For the first time in what feels like forever, Shiro’s deep breaths get him some fresh air, not the smothering, claustrophobic smell of blood and bile and brimstone. Around him, something smells like smoke, as if someone left a fire burning nearby, and Shiro needs to get to his feet. He needs to get moving, figure out where he is and how to get home.

For the moment, though, Shiro allows himself to sigh. “ _Fuck. You._ Jacob. West.”

  


* * *

  


Whatever isolated backroad Shiro’s walking, it soon enough brings him to a fill-up station with an attached convenience store. Simply spotting it on the horizon, he gasps and struggles to stay on his feet, much less stay moving. As he staggers toward his new goal, Shiro tries not to entertain the increasingly wild fancies his brain wants to have. He tries not to get his hopes up about anything before he even knows what he’s dealing with.

Good thing, too, because this mini-mart-shaped oasis doesn’t offer much. Only one car lurks outside, and at that, she looks like someone abandoned her. It’s a similar story inside: nobody by the register, nobody milling around the stacks of grab-and-go snacks, nobody staring at the rack of magazines where someone didn’t bother hiding the softcore porn. No one hears the disgusted noise that Shiro makes when he spots a back-issue of _Busty Asian Beauties_ , and no one runs over to yell at him for ripping it to shreds.

“Fucking garbage,” he hisses to no one in particular.

Unlike what would happen at Holt’s Roadhouse, Shiro does not get ambushed by a drove of blubbering white men who seem to come out of nowhere, all shrieking at him for having the audacity to call their favorite skin mag exactly what it is: racist, misogynistic, exploitative trash. Instead, he moseys into the men’s room as if nothing’s wrong.

Nice as it is that Colleen and Matt don’t need to get between him and their alleged “comrades” in the hunting life, the lack of visible people makes Shiro’s heart stutter like it could stop beating. Thoughts rush and whirl through his head— _What if it’s abandoned. What if nothing works. What if I’m alone. What if, after everything, I can’t get home. What if this is all a trick. What if I’m still in Hell and Sendak’s coming for me and he’ll be back soon and_ —but when he flips a light-switch, the restroom’s overhead fluorescents flicker on. Shiro heaves another sigh of relief, and soon finds that the sink works, too.

As far as quickie “showers” go, Shiro’s had worse. About six weeks after Adam left for Stanford, things came to blows with Jacob again. When Shiro fought back, he only overpowered Jacob because the old bastard was drunk as a skunk that took a swim in some backwoods moonshine distillery. Regardless, Jacob did a number on Shiro before passing out, left him walking nearly two miles in the middle of the night, clinging to one of Bennett’s protective hex-bags because Shiro ran out of the motel without his pistol and only had his concealed knives to defend himself. At least he had those backup protections from Uncle Mitch’s husband, though.

Somehow, Shiro made it to the nearest gas station. Head held high, refusing to flinch for the late shift cashiers who gawked at him, he forked over a few bucks for some coffee, some ziploc bags, a soda fountain cup that he could fill with ice, bandages, and a pack of Oreos he didn’t plan on eating. Toll paid fairly, he cleaned the blood off his face and hands in their men’s room, assessed the damage Jacob had done this time.

Fortunately, Shiro didn’t need to defraud an emergency room for care. He didn’t even need to fess up the cash for some antiseptic or break out the needle and nylon thread that Uncle Mitch insists his godson keep around for stitching people up as necessary. No, the worst part came as Shiro flopped into the grass, holding an improvised ice-pack to his cheek. As he stared up at the sky and the flimsy-looking crescent moon, Shiro longed so badly to burn with anger—but all he felt was pain and an empty, a yawning void in his chest where he should’ve had a heart.

Adam was gone and intended to stay gone forever. For all he missed his Sunshine, Shiro couldn’t blame Adam for leaving, for getting away from his father in the name of his own survival. If Shiro hadn’t forgotten his phone at the motel, he probably wouldn’t have had enough reception to call anybody. Worse yet, the person he most wanted didn’t want to hear from him again. In all likelihood, Adam was better off without him.

Shiro was completely on his own, that night. Had some vampire or demon or malevolent okami come at him, he wouldn’t have done much, if anything, to fight them off. Even now—scrubbing earth off his face and hands and chest with paper towel, in a gas station otherwise devoid of life—Shiro feels less alone than he did back then, whispering into the darkness that he had to get back to the motel and make sure he hadn’t murdered Adam’s father.

Objectively, this disparity makes no sam hecking sense. _Objectively_ , Shiro is more alone right now, no matter how many perfectly respectable people walked right by the sobbing, lanky nineteen-year-old, pretending they couldn’t see his bruises under the bright lights of the parking lot. For the love of all things beautiful, Shiro sings George Michael under his breath while cleaning up— _“Oh, baby, I reconsider my foolish notion. Well, I need someone to hold me but I wait for something more. Yes, I’ve gotta have faith…”_ —and nobody groans at him to shut up because he. is. alone. _period._

Shiro doesn’t even have his silver chain with his grandparents’ wedding rings. If he did, then he’d understand the feeling of someone else’s presence. Obaasan’s and Ojiisan’s kami remain attached to their wedding rings, constantly looking out for their wayward grandson and staying with Shiro through all manner of hardship. He’d bet money that Adam took the rings for safe-keeping—Shiro needs to ask about that, whenever he gets to Adam. Assuming that Adam’s okay—but how could he _not_ be, with Shiro’s grandparents looking out for him?

Yet, as he musses his fingers through his dirt-riddled, sweaty hair, Shiro would swear he feels something warm surrounding him. Not the natural heat or the stifling humidity, but something _pure_ , something _good_. As he brushes his fingers over the scar across his nose and cheeks—a gift from a broken bottle in bar-fight that Jacob got them into once and the DIY cauterization that followed—Shiro can’t shake the feeling that someone’s with him. The air pulses like a heartbeat and Shiro can’t tune it out. It only gets more insistent, thrumming in his ears as he works the paper towel up his left arm.

Shiro stops dead as his fingers find something… _weird_. Bumps—thick and warm. Raised like welts and Shiro can’t figure out how many of them there are by rubbing at his shoulder. Holding his breath, he yanks up his sleeve.

A bright red _handprint_ stares at him, covering his shoulder and upper bicep. Shiro’s breath catches in his throat. The mark looks like his facial scar did, after Jacob first gave it to him. Like a burn, but bigger. Angrier, somehow, or maybe more intense. Whatever left him with this brand, it’s probably a miracle that Shiro survived, on top of the obvious miracle that he’s back in his body, walking around topside as if he never left.

The heartbeat feeling throbs through the air, harder than ever. Shiro can’t stay here.

A local newspaper identifies “here” as the vicinity of West Salem, Illinois, probably in the middle of September. Shiro remembers dying in May, back in New Harmony, Indiana—but smart choice, if Uncle Mitch and Adam moved Shiro’s body before burying him. A shallow grave would’ve drawn too much attention, after the mess they made with Lotor, hunting down Lilith and no doubt traumatizing the little girl she was possessing (— _Emily Fremont_ , Shiro tells himself, recalling how the girl sobbed on her mother after he stopped Adam from sticking her with Lotor’s knife, how Mrs. Andrea Fremont tried to comfort her daughter after what they’d been through. _Lilith’s last victim is a person. She has a name. Emily Fremont_ ).

Strictly speaking, an isolated site also would’ve worked for salting and burning Shiro’s remains, but apparently, Adam didn’t do that. Shambling back into the mini-mart, Shiro files that away on a list of things to ask his Sunshine about when he finds where that idiot-genius is hiding.

Thankfully, Shiro makes quick work of rustling up some supplies. Illinois isn’t _terribly_ far from Sioux Falls and the salvage yard that Dad and Uncle Mitch co-own. Far, yes, but nothing crazy. Still, once he hotwires that car outside, Shiro’s probably gonna be on the road for a solid twelve or thirteen hours, give or take. At least nothing’s expired and the refrigerators are running, so he has cold water, protein bars, some Diet Coke, and pretzels, which he’s in the mood to count as a considerable stroke of luck.

Checking behind the desk for a phone, he instead finds a roadmap of Illinois and paperback that makes him squeal in delight. Splashed across the cover, along with the deliberately vintage-looking illustration, sits the words, _“The Vampire Nymphomaniacs from Planet Zandarr Meddle With The Dragon Queen”_ —Shiro had no idea there was a new installment of his favorite series out, but this copy belongs to him, now. Another stroke of luck, probably unearned but definitely not unwelcome.

With a sigh, Shiro hauls himself to his feet. He glances at the register, briefly considers taking whatever’s in it. But no, bad idea—he can’t do that to whoever runs this place. Maybe the fraudulent credit cards in his wallet will still work. If not, he’ll turn a couple tricks or hustle pool for gas and dinner money, nothing he hasn’t done since he and Adam were thirteen.

Shiro’s looking over the map when the TV behind him switches on. Static crackles, and Shiro groans. Without a thought, he switches the stupid thing off and lets himself breathe easily—until music lilts out of radio on the counter. The tune distorts, dipping low, then snaps back into what it should be, all soft melodies and Dolly Parton singing, _“Tears were scattered everywhere. He was trying to save his pride—”_

Another dip in the music makes it sound like Shiro’s hearing it underwater. Another burst of static gnarrs, demanding attention. Shiro holds his breath until his fumbling finds the right button. Once the radio clicks off, he snatches up his map, book, and plastic bags of supplies.

Two paces from the door, he stops dead. The TV’s back in action, blaring still more static. Over top of the din, Dolly croons, _“Oh, this boy has been hurt, but I’ll save him. I’ll take his heart and mend it, if I can. Oh, this boy has been hurt—”_

Around him, the walls tremble like an earthquake’s coming on. A sound swells like a symphony made of ringing ears. Between that and the electronics—Shiro dashes to a side-aisle.

Cursing under his breath in a mix of English, Japanese, and Hebrew, he starts dumping lines of salt on the windows, on the floor before the door. Dammit, just his luck. He gets put back in his body rather than left in Hell. He’s intact instead of ripped to shreds. He doesn’t look like something straight out of George A. Romero’s stress-nightmares or a monster Clive Barker would see if he dropped acid. Barely an hour or so back to life, and Shiro’s already handling a demon on his own, unarmed because (probably) Adam took all of his concealed knives.

 _But how can it be a demon?_ —Shiro’s breath snags at that thought. He stares at a new container of salt, knowing he should rip it open, but— _The hex-bags. In my pockets. They’re probably from Bennett, so how could a demon—_

Outside, something rushes down the dirt road. The air pulses as if it’s come to life. A _pow!_ follows, like a sonic boom, and then a clamor starts ringing, vibrating through everything.

Shiro hits the floor, ducks and covers his head. Just in time to miss the windows blowing out. Struggling to breathe, Shiro grips on to his hair for dear life. His thoughts whirl, racing— _what if this thing comes for me, what if I give myself away, what if_ ** _Sendak_** —and aches shoot through his ears. Memories of shooting lessons all come back to Shiro—memories of Jacob taking him and Adam out, of him teaching them how to handle pistols, and of their ears ringing because he didn’t give them plugs or warn them how loud the shots would be—and fuck, that cannot be the last thing he remembers before he dies _again_.

Through it all, though—through the panic and the sound, the _song_ that’s ringing, that reverberates through Shiro’s nerves and muscles—he feels something warm, something _pure_ , something that desperately wants to reach him and be heard, even though it only makes Shiro’s ears scream out, pain searing every nerve, every remotely sensitive spot in him—

After a few moments, everything calms down. Very much not-dead, Shiro blinks at the sea of splintered wood and broken glass around him. He knows what these materials are, but they seem like things he’s never seen. Carefully, relying on the shelves for help, Shiro drags himself up. As he gathers his bags of supplies, Shiro adds this incident to his growing list of likely miracles. So much good luck, all at once? That can’t mean anything good.

Worse than that, an old, familiar, empty feeling settles on Shiro. Cold without chilling him, heavy without having any substance, aching because it feels like nothing, not in spite of that—loneliness. Whatever presence he felt before, it’s gone away, leaving Shiro on his own, in dead, humid air that feels like it wants to choke him.

God, he cannot stay here, not a second longer. Time to hotwire himself a car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Personal reactions/interpretations
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
>   * Comments made with the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta).
> 

> 
> The author reads and appreciates all comments, and gets back to all of them eventually, but may be slow to reply due to trying to rein in the ADHD/anxiety cocktail.
> 
> If, for any reason, you don’t want to receive a reply, just put, “whisper” near the start of your comment, and I’ll appreciate it without replying.
> 
> * * *
> 
> some hypothetical rando who only exists for the purposes of me explaining my rationale here: “But Adam and Shiro are not brothers in Voltron canon, though”
> 
> me: “Yes. Thank you. Well aware. What’s your point?”
> 
> rando: “Sam and Dean? Are brothers?? Though???”
> 
> me: “Yep, they sure are.”
> 
> rando: “Adam and Shiro are not blood-related? Or adoptive brothers, that we know of???”
> 
> me: “Neither are Keith and Shiro, canonically, but that sure doesn’t stop people from claiming that either of those things is true in the name of leading witch-hunts against ships that they don’t like and harassing Sheith shippers based on things that are objectively untrue.”
> 
> rando: “………But Adam and Shiro are not brothers.”
> 
> me: “They aren’t in this reality, either. Or, well, they go back and forth on whether or not they feel like calling each other, ‘my brother.’ Their relationship is complicated and often messy, which is to be expected, given that they will be playing the roles of Sam and Dean, whose relationship is also complicated and often messy.”
> 
> rando: “But how?? Will you have??? Sam and Dean’s codependency???? If they aren’t brothers?????”
> 
> me: “…………What? Is that, like, a dare or something?”
> 
> rando: “Why Adam, though? Why not Matt or someone not-Adam?”
> 
> me: “Because I like Adam (or rather, I like my headcanons about him, which I definitely made up—and/or borrowed/adopted/adapted from headcanons made up by the fabulous NoirSongbird—because I don’t like what canon did with him), and I like Adam as Sam, and the idea of Lotor being all, ‘Are you scared to go there with a demon? Because it’s bad, and it’s wrong, and we shouldn’t’ and then Adam hoisting Lotor up and nailing him to the wall is really hot.”
> 
> —also, Lotor was my immediate pick for Ruby, so Sam had to be someone who I ship with Lotor, because Sam/Ruby was one of the only things I shipped as hard as Dean/Cas. (Un)Fortunately for Lance and Hunk (my favorite shipmates for Lotor aside from Shiro and Adam), I couldn’t really make either of them work as Sam, so Adam will be the one nailing Lotor to the wall, in this reality.


	2. Chapter 2

Finding _The Best of Queen_ in the abandoned car’s CD player feels like the universe’s way of saying, _“Sorry about the scare just now.”_

Nicer still, the CD player has six discs in rotation, five of them by Queen and one by the cast of _Glee_. True, Shiro would rather find Hole’s _Live Through This_ , Emilie Autumn’s _Opheliac_ , or anything George Michael ever released, but at least he got some manner of good music for this drive. At least he didn’t get stuck borrowing a ride from somebody who only listens to Led Zeppelin, Kansas, and AC/DC. As Shiro starts off down the dirt road, heading for home, he gets to do it to the tune of “Killer Queen.”

It’s going on midnight when Shiro rolls past the _“Welcome to Sioux Falls, South Dakota”_ sign, keeping himself awake by blasting “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy” more loudly than necessary. In all likelihood, he should be grateful that the Sheriff doesn’t show up to pull him over with a noise complaint.

Another twenty minutes and he rocks up to the Iverson and Family Salvage Yard while Freddie Mercury belts “Death On Two Legs.” As the engine dies, Shiro silently thanks his lucky stars that he won’t need to lie about turning any tricks to get back here. Mom, Dad, Uncle Mitch, and Bennett perpetually wish he wouldn’t resort to dabbling in the world’s oldest profession when he needs money, and fortunately, Shiro found seventy-five dollars on the floor of that rest stop men’s room. So much good luck in one day _must_ mean there’s trouble looming on the horizon, waiting for the opportune moment to strike Shiro down—but he’ll deal with it later.

Right now, he only wants to haul himself up the creaky staircase, through an actual shower, and into bed. Up on the porch, Shiro sighs in relief when he finds Bennett’s spare house-key on the first try. An anti-demon protection circle sits around it, painted in stark white with a ring of salt in the sealer as added insurance against any interloping demons and monsters. Not that they’re above kicking in the door, should it strike their fancies, but the threshold has its own layers of sigils, wards, and of course more salt. You can never be too careful.

Once he’s locked the door, Shiro pries himself out of his boots. Inhaling deeply, he catches a whiff of the heady incense that he, Mom, and Dad burn in their butsudan. Past that, though, there’s only an unmistakable scent that, by all rights, Shiro never should’ve smelled again. He can’t help but smile as he ambles into the living room, warmth seeping through him. The couch tempts him with its cushions, but God, lights are on in the kitchen, upstairs, and down the hall—

“I’m _home_ ,” Shiro calls out to whoever all’s awake. “It’s really me—”

“Who’s ‘really me’?”

That barking voice makes Shiro’s heart leap into his throat. “Uncle Mitch?”

“Who else did you expect to be manning the phones this late, son?” He groans a bit, followed by the sound of chair-legs scraping against linoleum, then the grunting that comes when he’s got knots in his back or shoulders. “Course, you’d’ve known that, if you’d called ahead—”

“Sorry, I know. But I was moving fast, didn’t get a chance—”

“You feeling okay? Your voice is kinda funny tonight. A little too deep? Sounds like you’ve got something in your throat.”

This notion makes Shiro frown bemusedly. Any responses he might’ve given fritz out in his brain without letting Shiro come up with any words. Where is Uncle Mitch getting the idea that he sounds weird? Shiro doesn’t sound any different than usual, not as far as he can tell. Plus, he drank so much water on the way up here that he took three of his piss-breaks off the side of the road because he couldn’t wait for a rest area. His throat feels better than ever—probably thanks to whatever closed up the gaping wounds on his chest and stomach without leaving any scars. So, really, why does Uncle Mitch think Shiro’s voice sounds funny?

For that matter, why is Uncle Mitch acting like Hellhound-butchered godsons crawl out of their graves every single Thursday?

But as Uncle Mitch shuffles toward the sink, then clatters about cleaning off some dishes as if he has nothing abnormal happening, he goes on, “Whatever, doesn’t matter. Dayquil’s in the cupboard, if you need it. Sick or not, everyone’s just gonna be relieved to see you in one piece, after all this time. Assuming you _are_ in one piece, instead of bleeding all over the floor?”

“That… sure is one way of putting it?” Scrubbing at his nose, Shiro sighs. “Where is everyone?”

“Oh, they’re around. Bennett’s writing in his study.” The sink turns off. More groaning—Uncle Mitch’s back must really be in bad shape, tonight. “Hikaru’s out in the shed, tinkering with something or other, I don’t even know what.” The floor creaks as Uncle Mitch’s steps finally come toward Shiro. “Noshiko took her research upstairs a little while ago? After she lit a candle and some incense for your Star… light… you…”

In the threshold between the kitchen and the living room, Uncle Mitch stops dead. His mouth falls open. His good eye threatens to bulge out of his skull. He shakes his head in disbelief, and gasps softly as Shiro steps more into the light from this room’s lamps.

“You’re not Adam,” Uncle Mitch says, barely above a whisper.

“Not last I checked, no.” Shiro quirks his shoulders, puts on his best smile, even if it wobbles. “Happy birthday?”

“I don’t… You can’t… This isn’t _possible_ …”

“That’s what I thought, too, but? Here I am.”

“Yeah, you sure are, aren’t you.” Nodding slowly, Uncle Mitch edges into the room. He hesitates near an end-table, the one beside his favorite armchair, but doesn’t take his eyes off Shiro. “How long have you…”

“Just happened this morning. Once I found a car, I came right—”

Something glints at him, lamplight flashing off it as it comes at Shiro. Gasping, he barely catches Uncle Mitch’s arm in time. Dimly, without fully seeing the thing, he guesses that his godfather grabbed a silver dagger—but Uncle Mitch launches them into a tussle. He may not stay as active in the field as Mom, much less Shiro and Adam, but even with his modest belly, Uncle Mitch moves more nimbly on his feet than most men his age. His jabs with the dagger have power behind them, too. If he could land a strike, Shiro would be in for a world of hurt.

Tearing himself away from their tangling, Shiro fumbles into the kitchen. He yanks Bennett’s ergonomic rolling chair between them. One hand stays on the thing, so it can’t get away and Uncle Mitch can’t move it without a fight. Until they get things settled and dispel Uncle Mitch’s fears, Shiro needs that makeshift wall. Fixing his gaze on his godfather, he raises his other hand slowly, carefully, showing off how unarmed he is.

“Your name is Mitchell Joseph Iverson,” he says. “Born and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. You’re married to Bennett Velarde Martínez. You got into hunting after saving some kids from a rawhead. _You’re like a second father to me!_ ”

“Kashi,” Uncle Mitch breathes out. Doesn’t sound like he believes it—but as he steps closer, he lowers his blade. Reaching for Shiro’s shoulder with his off-hand, Uncle Mitch looks like he could start crying. His breath hitches in his throat. “God bless it, Kashi. Is it really—”

“I’m as real as Krampus beasts.” Shiro lets himself smile at the memory of hunting one of those little shits with Mom and Adam, last December. After two deep breaths, he nods. Tears sting in his eyes. God, he’s home. He thought he’d be stuck in Hell forever, but—

With a deep grunt, Uncle Mitch lurches into another swing.

Eyes rolling hard, Shiro catches him before he can land the blow. Twisting Uncle Mitch’s arm behind his back, he huffs. “How would I get into the house, huh? If I were a revenant? We’ve got enough salt outside for the fields of Carthage, and Bennett does the best protective warding in the entire damn Midwest!”

Grunting, Uncle Mitch struggles against Shiro’s hold. “Then you’re a shapeshifter!”

He wrenches his arm—but Shiro gets the knife. With it in hand, he shoves Uncle Mitch off. While his godfather reels, whips around in search of where Shiro’s gone, Shiro fumbles back behind the rolling chair. By the time Uncle Mitch faces him again, Shiro already has the blade pressed to the inside of his right forearm.

“If I were either of those monsters,” he says, “could I do _this_ with a silver knife? One that you’ve had blessed in three different religions?”

Wincing, Shiro slices into his flesh. Not deeply—the pain only comes from how sharp Uncle Mitch keeps his tools—but he draws out a thin line of blood. That’s what really matters: Shiro’s flesh doesn’t sear under the touch of the silver, and he doesn’t scream in agony. Looking Uncle Mitch square in the eye, Shiro waits for this to sink in, silently pleads for his godfather—one of the people who raised him, one of the only people on the planet he’s certain he loves—to get it through his head that Shiro’s here, he’s real, he’s himself and alive once more.

Next thing Shiro knows, Uncle Mitch scoops him up into the tightest hug he’s ever felt, clutching Shiro to his broad chest. The dagger clatters to the floor and Shiro’s tears spill out as he clings back. He coughs, tries to will himself to _stop crying_ —but it’s no good. A sob cracks its way out of him, which only makes Uncle Mitch hold on more tightly. God fucking—Shiro’s _home_. He really is. Whatever dragged him out of Hell, whatever its no doubt evil agenda is, at least it got him home, where he’s safe—as safe as anybody can get in a fucked up world like this.

“It’s okay, son. I’ve got you. You’re okay,” Uncle Mitch promises, gently rubbing Shiro’s back. He wouldn’t say a thing like that if he knew what Shiro went through Downstairs—but thinking about that makes Shiro’s insides go cold. He almost whines in protest as Uncle Mitch wriggles away. “Dammit, we’ve gotta tell your Mom and Dad, they’ll want to—”

His voice stops as something cool splashes in Shiro’s face and mouth. Spitting some of it up, Shiro spots the silver flask in Uncle Mitch’s hand, and the little cross engraved around its neck—holy water. He sighs, fixing his godfather with an unimpressed expression.

“I’m not a demon, either,” he says.

“Good damn thing, too. I don’t have the patience for one of those black-eyed bastards tonight.” Uncle Mitch’s smile quivers, but every bit of it is earnest. “But really, son: your parents need to know you’re back.”

Shiro nods. Every inch of him aches to see Mom and Dad, but there’s someone missing—“What about Adam? Where is he?”

Uncle Mitch flinches, then shakes his head. “Sit down, son. Fix yourself something to eat, if you’re hungry. I’ll get Hikaru and Noshiko for you.”

  


* * *

  


Pointed non-answers make Shiro antsy on principle. They make his mind wander to every last thing that could possibly go wrong ever, until he dreams up enough worst case scenarios and solutions for them to write his own survival guide. Once he’s made some dinner and cried while hugging everyone, _“Hello, I thought I’d never see you again either,”_ Shiro almost feels let down by the explanation of what happened to Adam and why he’s not around.

“We keep looking for him when we can, Kashi,” Mom explains while Shiro pokes through his plate of reheated chicken con queso. “But your Sunshine’s a stubborn little brat, when he wants to be. He doesn’t want to be found. Hasn’t wanted that since right after you died. Hells, he barely stopped in here long enough to grab his journals.”

“That’s nice,” Shiro grumbles. “I’m still gonna find him. Adam can’t stay hidden. Not from me.”

“Well, hearing such certainty is reassuring in its own way, when you only have a fraction of a plan. Y’know, it clears up any lingering doubts that you _are_ , in fact, yourself.” Dad sighs like he’s about to say something he knows Shiro won’t enjoy hearing. “ _No one_ has heard from Adam, Kashi. We’ve heard rumors about him still being active—Sam, Matt, and Colleen pass on any scuttlebutt that comes through the Roadhouse—but he won’t call us back—”

“Then I’ll go to him.” Tugging up his sleeve, Shiro lets his parents, Uncle Mitch, and Bennett get a good, long look at the handprint marring his left shoulder. “Whatever did this to me probably pulled me out of Hell. Smart money says that my idiot went and made a Deal, exactly like I told him _not_ to do for me—”

“He could’ve, but then why did he wait four months?” With a soft sigh, Mom rests her cheek in her palm. “However you got back, Kashi, I’m not questioning it that much. But it doesn’t make sense for Adam to have waited this long.”

“Could’ve been that he didn’t wait, but demons wouldn’t work with him. Maybe he had to find alternate means of breaking the rules about this, I don’t know.” Ruffing a hand over the longer, fluffier forelock in his hair—the bit that’s been shocking white ever since Sue-Ann LeGrange had her leashed up Reaper save Shiro’s life—he sighs. “What I _do_ know is that I’m gonna find that four-eyed dumb-ass and ask him about this myself.”

Sure enough, come morning, it doesn’t even take Shiro half-an-hour to figure out that Adam’s currently in Columbus, Ohio. Most of said thirty minutes get spent waiting on hold while a nice customer service rep for Arc Mobile reviews some records so she can activate the GPS and remote locator for _Leonard Kirk’s_ cellphone.

Not that Shiro doesn’t appreciate the _Star Trek_ reference because he does, and not that he doesn’t appreciate how easy his Sunshine made this process—but the sheer predictability going on takes the ridiculous cake. God, Adam got a full ride at Stanford by virtue of being a clever, hardworking genius. He got a 179 out of 180 on his LSATs. If that Yellow-Eyed _ben zonna_ hadn’t murdered Jeff and incinerated their apartment, Adam could’ve walked into any law top-tier law school out there and had the nice, normal, apple pie life he always wanted, when he and Shiro were growing up. Honestly, it wouldn’t kill Adam to exercise a little more creativity, sometimes.

GPS isn’t entirely reliable, but it helps. Knowing Adam’s general vicinity means Shiro and Bennett can work a ritual to pinpoint the location of Shiro’s black ‘69 Chevy Impala. Before he got made a Hellhound’s chew-toy, he asked Adam to take care of her for him, so finding his car means finding Adam. Maybe this wouldn’t be a sure bet with anyone else, but Adam knows better than to let anything happen to the Impala.

Technically, Shiro’s had those wheels since before he could even drive. When he and Adam were fourteen, some old guy in Sioux Falls bit the dust without specifying what he wanted done with his classic car. Sure, he’d loved the Impala, but he hadn’t taken care of her, and his shallow, ingrate offspring didn’t want to keep her. So, she wound up in the salvage yard, looking like a rolling junk-heap. Dad and Uncle Mitch planned to scrap her for parts, but when the spring sunlight glinted off her hood, Shiro knew: all she needed was a tune-up from someone who loved her.

Swept up in all his starry-eyed, teenage romantic nonsense, Shiro significantly underestimated what that “tune-up” would require. He spent the next year-and-a-half or so fixing that car in between hunts and schoolwork, learning her inside and out, getting her engine to purr like the lioness he’s always known she is. As soon as Dad and Uncle Mitch deemed her road-ready, Shiro christened her “Ariel,” because like the fairy out of Shakespeare’s _Tempest_ , his car is magic, with a will of her own, and she needs to be respected as an equal.

 _“Honestly, Takashi,”_ Adam’s drawled so often that Shiro stopped counting the unique incidents, _“if I didn’t know better? That is to say, if I didn’t know that you’re just dramatically overstating things because of how much you love your car? I might wonder if you aren’t genuinely delusional. Magic is real, sure, but Ariel doesn’t actually have any.”_

Dad agrees with him, and Uncle Mitch goes back and forth while Mom stays out of the discussion entirely. It’s okay, though. They don’t need to believe in Ariel’s unique magic; Shiro knows it’s real.

Since getting her on the road, Shiro’s kept Ariel running perfectly. He near about rebuilt her after one of Azazel’s mooks tried to kill him, Adam, Dad, and Jacob. More importantly, at the moment, Shiro knows what wards and hex-bags he’s put in Ariel. He knows exactly what Bennett and Lotor have helped him do in order to protect his car and anyone who travels in her—and he knows how to circumvent those protections in order to find her.

According to the ritual, Adam’s currently at a motel around Ohio State University.

While Shiro, Mom, and Uncle Mitch drive toward Columbus, Bennett periodically sends them updates, verifying that Adam hasn’t gone anywhere else. He seems like he’s on the move, at one point in the late-ish evening, but it turns out that he’s only going to a diner on the other side of the city. According to a Google search from Dad, said diner has the best french fries in Ohio, if not the entire Midwest. A few reviewers go so far as claiming that they had the best fries of their lives, right there at Molly’s, happily talking up how perfectly crisp and salty they were. Apparently, the cooks even do different flavors.

“Kinda hope Lotor doesn’t find out about them, wherever _he’s_ gotten off to.” Although he forces a playful smirk, Shiro feels his heart sinking. God, all Lotor wanted to do was be his friend, help save him, and fight against Lilith—and who even knows how much trouble he got into for those efforts because, by her own words, Lilith sent him _far, far away_. Still, Shiro tacks on, “Lotor would eat that place clean out of potatoes and oil, he loves his fries so much.”

During the last leg of the drive, Shiro nods off in the backseat of Uncle Mitch’s station wagon. He doesn’t rouse until Uncle Mitch wakes him, in the motel’s parking lot, with sunrise splotching all over the sky while the moon and stars fade out.

“I’ve got us a room, Sleeping Beauty,” he says while Shiro rubs his eyes. “Your Sunshine’s in room 207, but—”

“We’re going there first.” Shiro doesn’t wait for an argument. Stretching out his back and shoulders, he heads for Adam’s room.

Sunshine doesn’t open up on Shiro’s first knock. He doesn’t on the second, either. Nor the third. On the fourth try, Uncle Mitch sighs and mumbles something about how they’ve been driving on back-roads for almost nineteen hours, and it’s late, and maybe Adam’s doing what _reasonable_ people do at this hour of a Saturday morning. Of course, Uncle Mitch has a valid point—most normal people, Shiro assumes, sleep in when they can afford to do so, especially on the weekend, before the sun’s fully out—but he keeps knocking. Despite anything Adam’s let himself think before, he _isn’t_ “normal.” Neither of them is.

Finally, someone groans behind the door. There’s a sound like shuffling footsteps, then they pause at the door. A moment’s hesitation and a string of faint Hebrew cussing—Adam must be checking the peephole. Fair enough, that’s only safe, but Shiro wishes Adam would hurry up. When the locks click, Shiro’s breath catches in his throat. He almost slaps himself, to make sure he isn’t dreaming, but as the door opens, everything in his mind goes blank, replaced by the feeling like soon enough, the world’s gonna be alright again.

Which shatters into pieces as someone grabs him by the shirt.

Grunting like a wild animal, they yank Shiro through the threshold. He pushes back, or tries to, but they caught him off his guard. His back slams into the wall with a dull _thump!_ and a groan bubbles out of Shiro. No memories or feelings he didn’t ask for rush back to him— _Not like Hell,_ he reminds himself, even with his head reeling, _I’m not in Hell, Sendak isn’t here_ —and he can’t stop his body from sighing in relief.

As if punishing him for accepting that reprieve, something metallic _shink!_ s out. Its cool, smooth edge presses into his throat but doesn’t cut him. Fighting how badly his nerves scream out to flee, Shiro forces his eyes open. He blinks at a familiar set of glasses, and behind them, a pair of earthy brown eyes that he’d know anywhere. Right now, they squint at Shiro like Adam’s trying to peer into his soul. His eyes burn with anger, and hurt, and purpose, rather than glimmering with a clever idea or going dewy as Adam slips into a rare moment of softness.

“You really gonna kill me, Sunshine?” Shiro cringes briefly—he didn’t mean to deadpan that question or come off sounding like a dare—but makes himself meet Adam’s gaze again. With another forced smile, he pats the wrist pinning him against the wall. “Wouldn’t slitting my throat defeat the whole purpose of bringing me back?”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about, _miflétset_ ,” Adam snarls, peppering in a Hebrew word for _monster_. “If you wanna fight me, fine. But do it in your own face, _not_ Takashi’s. Isn’t it bad enough that he’s dead—”

“I’m not _dead_! I’m right here!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Shiro notices Uncle Mitch reaching for one of his own concealed switchblades. But Mom holds up an arm to stop him advancing. Maybe she thinks this is something her boys need to sort out for themselves. Maybe she just doesn’t believe that Adam will really do it. Or maybe she’s counting on Shiro to come up with something brilliant—

“D’you remember that summer break hunt when we were sixteen?” Adam’s eyes go wide and his brow knots up in confusion, offense, or possibly both. But Shiro presses on, telling him, “I’d gotten Ariel all fixed up. We had actual licenses. We weren’t supposed to go hunting on our own, but I dragged you out of the house for a quickie anyway. Because you were up to your eyes in SAT prep, not taking breaks, it wasn’t good for you. You kept trying to make me do it with you, talking about college and my future and how I really should’ve thought about applying, and I just rolled my eyes, going like, ‘Come on, it’s only an obnoxious ghost, salt and burn, in and out, maybe we have to find the emotionally significant personal item’—”

“How do you know this,” Adam snarls, pressing the flat edge of his blade into Shiro’s skin. “What the fuck did you _do_ to Takashi, _satán_ —”

“I am _not_ a demon—”

“You show up here, riding Takashi’s meat-suit as if he isn’t dead—”

“Come _on_ , do I look like some _28 Days Later_ reject—”

“Talking like you know about that that summer—did you _torture_ it out of him?” Something cold flashes across Adam’s eyes, something absolutely arctic, like Shiro’s rarely seen in him before and definitely not with this intensity. A chill plummets to the pit of his stomach; he has no idea how he keeps himself from shuddering. But his heart about stops as Adam drops his voice deathly low and says, “You must have no idea what I can do to evil, wretched _things_ like you, _satán_. If you had any part in torturing _akhí_ , my _Starlight_ —”

“Let me finish, why don’t you!” Shiro huffs, tightening his grip on Adam’s wrist and refusing to look anywhere but his idiot’s face. “Yes, we fought a ghost, that day. But we didn’t know, at first, that she’d been conjured by someone else. She only wanted to get released from that. So, she decided—” Shiro rolls his eyes as he admits, “She came for me because I’d dragged you into something you didn’t want to be doing, either. Which made me like the bastard who’d pulled her out of her otherwise peaceful rest.”

Finally, Adam falters. He doesn’t soften, exactly, but at least he seems to consider what Shiro’s telling him. “What did Takashi—or what did _you_ —say? When she whammied you and started forcing you to tell the truth?”

“I mean, I said a lot of things that day, but the biggest one? For me, at least?” A shrug and a sigh—God, Shiro never wanted Mom and Uncle Mitch to hear about this. In a flat, almost removed voice, Shiro intones, “‘Why are you allowed to push me about college, Adam. You’re gonna leave eventually, I already know that. Why do you keep rubbing my face in it. The only way I’d get into Stanford is if I snuck off to California for a few days and blew every man on the admissions board.’ Which made our spectral friend decide to turn on _you_ , and—”

Shiro shuts up as Adam jerks him into a tight embrace. The knife plops on the motel’s carpet while Shiro cleaves to Adam in return. Making a small, creaking, throaty noise, sounding like he might start crying, Adam buries his face in Shiro’s shoulder. He digs his fingertips at Shiro’s back, like Shiro might disappear if Adam doesn’t hold as fast as he can. Dimly, Shiro thinks he hears the shower running, then eventually shutting off, and he definitely hears Mom or Uncle Mitch closing the door. But it doesn’t matter, none of it does. He’ll hug Adam for as long as he needs.

“I’m sorry,” Adam murmurs, after several long moments. “It wasn’t me who got you out, Takashi. I tried everything. No demon would Deal with me. James and Ryan stopped me from trying to open the Devil’s Gate. They handcuffed me to a radiator; they didn’t know about Bela making off with the Colt and thought I had it. Thought Sam and Colleen were gonna kill me, the last time I went to the Roadhouse, ‘cause trying to summon your spirit didn’t work, and then the _mess_ —”

“It’s okay, Sunshine,” Shiro promises. “I believe you. But I’m back, and I’m okay, we’re going to figure this out—”

He cuts himself off at the sound of someone clearing their throat. Looking over Adam’s shoulder, Shiro takes in the sight of a tall, lithe young man with terracotta skin, probably around the same age as them and wearing a pair of Adam’s pajama pants. Silvery blonde hair hangs past his narrow waist and sharp hips, damp with sections clumping together. It probably looks downright glamorous, when he hasn’t just gotten out of the shower. Tilting his pointy chin toward Shiro shows off immaculately sculpted cheekbones, and his blue eyes go soft, while his smirk reminds Shiro of Mom’s favorite switchblade.

“Would you mind if I cut in,” the long-haired pretty boy purrs, patting Adam’s back between the shoulder-blades. As Adam wriggles away, the pretty boy’s eyes gleam like broken glass under a full moon, and the chord they strike in Shiro feels so familiar but he can’t quite place it. Not until the ostensible stranger gently squeezes his elbow. “We’ve missed you, darling. Quite terribly, I might add.”

Shiro tries to ignore the hope that flares up in his chest, but at the same time—“…Lotor?”

“In the flesh,” he says. By way of proof, he lets his eyes turn black. “Specifically, in the flesh of a former art-and-fashion-model whose soul had moved on, leaving his body comatose. Adam rather insisted that I—”

Whatever else Lotor has to say, it’s probably important. Regardless, Shiro pulls Lotor close and hugs him tight. In the back of his mind, Shiro can’t help thinking that this cannot be good. Finding Adam and Lotor both intact, reuniting with two of the only people he can safely call family, running into relatively few obstructions on the way—Shiro never gets a run of good luck like this unless it has several strings attached or involves the cursed rabbit’s foot that introduced him and Adam to Bela Talbot. Something nefarious looms in his future, because that’s what always happens.

But for now—just for a couple moments—Shiro wants to hug his friend and pretend that everything’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ _akhí_ ,” the word that Adam used for describing Shiro, is the Hebrew for, “ _my brother_ ” that King David uses for Jonathan in 2 Samuel 1:17-27 (the lament for Saul and Jonathan that is best known for the, “How are the mighty fallen” part, and in which David describes Jonathan’s love as, “surpassing the love of women”). I’m mostly noting that because teenage Shiro definitely got on Pastor Jim’s nerves by going, “Okay, but see, I actually read The Book, and all of this sounds pretty damn gay, Jim.”
> 
> Also, yes: the Impala is essentially the Black Lion, now. Because I thought it was neat, that’s why.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are, openly discussing demons and monsters and people crawling out of Hell in the middle of a diner, like so many episodes of _Supernatural_.
> 
> Also, yes, I am aware that I have taken some considerable liberties with How Angels Work and deviated from SPN canon in some pretty big ways, but here’s my counterpoint: it’s fun.
> 
> In the same way, making Altea and Daibazaal into fictional countries is fun for me because it means I get to make up fictional mythologies and have their gods kicking around.

With a soft huff, Shiro gestures at Adam and Lotor with one of the so-called best french fries in Ohio. “So, you two are…”

“Sleeping together, yes.” Lotor dunks his own parmesan-crusted fry into a little plastic tub of marinara. “Since about five or six weeks after you died—”

“ _Please_ don’t read too much into that. The timing _or_ the sleeping together, I mean.” Sighing like he wants to go back to bed, Adam slouches onto the table. Propped up on his elbows, he scrubs at one of his eyes without taking off his glasses. “It wasn’t like we went, ‘Oh, I miss Takashi. I miss Takashi, too. I’m so miserable without him, I’m absolutely devastated, how can we go on, I don’t know, let’s fuck until we’re less sad’—”

“In some respects, _anektra_ , the way that things _progressed_ between us was exactly like that—”

“Look, you were rotting in Hell, Starlight. You were allegedly there forever and I couldn’t fix it, which is the heaviest, worst kind of guilt I’ve ever felt. When Lotor got back topside and came to find me, I was in a pretty bad place—”

“He’s dramatically understating things, darling. The backwoods shack where I found him squatting, after I first possessed this body…” Lotor lets out a low whistle and his meat-suit’s impeccable eyebrows arch so high on his forehead, it’s like they’re trying to escape. “You remember _Slaughterhouse Five_ —I returned your copy to Ariel’s glovebox, by the way, and your _Breakfast of Champions_ —”

“I remember that I feel really sketchy about comparing the Nazi firebombing of Dresden to Adam’s depression shack.” Idly, Shiro clinks the ice cubes around his glass of water. “But analogy understood: he was staying in a shit-hole.”

“I was referring to my _emotional_ state, thanks,” Adam drawls. “Not like anything awful happened to make me feel like a human trainwreck or whatever. Like, wow, I totally didn’t spend a whole year, frantically pawing through every potentially helpful resource I could find, getting nowhere slowly, trying to save one of the only people who’s ever loved me from an alleged eternity in Hell that he signed himself up for by refusing to value his own life—”

“And to save _yours_ , lest we forget.” Shiro’s jaw tightens as he hears himself say this. He chokes down a shiver, or at least nobody acts like they’ve heard anything. Good—Shiro can’t handle any invasive questions about how he’s doing right now, as if it matters.

Swallowing thickly, he pulls Uncle Mitch’s old leather jacket closer around his shoulders, even though this chill isn’t physical. It’s the same, soul-deep cold that always comes when he thinks about his Deal—except this time, he doesn’t recall shouting to Adam when that Yellow-Eyed _ben zonna_ coalesced behind him and stabbed him in the back. Shiro tries to go there, tries to think about the light leaving Adam’s eyes, about clinging to his body as he went limp and begging him to hang on and please stay alive, about shouting his name into the night while Mom and Uncle Mitch shepherded Ryan, James, Ina, and Nadia away from Cold Oak. Forcing himself to breathe evenly, Shiro tries to focus on the Crossroads Demon who dealt with him, a leggy, sharp-edged pretty boy with skin-tight black jeans and a voice like smoke.

But trying to divert his thoughts only makes them worse. Cocooned in four layers—t-shirt, overshirt, beat-up flannel, leather jacket—Shiro’s still freezing, as if every hex-bag and amulet at this table has somehow failed, allowing Sendak to chase him topside and hunt him down, as if he’s breathing down the back of Shiro’s neck right now. Somewhere in the diner, an air-conditioning unit rumbles and it almost sounds like Sendak’s chuckling, like the way he tried to tell Shiro, _If Adam really loved you, then why didn’t he appreciate what you did for him, sweet boy? All these memories of him getting angry when you gave up your own freedom so he could live—how ungrateful. I would never dismiss such a beautiful sacrifice—_

“I’d really rather not rehash the argument about my Deal, though,” Shiro bites out, digging his fingertips into his elbow to remind himself where reality is. “It’s old news, now that my gutter soul is back in its freshly healed body.”

That’s what the Crossroads Demon said he had: _“Keep your gutter soul, it’s too tarnished anyway.”_

Downstairs, Sendak pushed down on Shiro’s throat and offered a very different take: _“You have no idea how splendid your soul is, do you, Takashi? Haven’t you noticed the way it shines more brightly than anyone else’s? With that kind of raw power—with that goodness—you were meant to fall down here, to find yourself in my care and to receive my tutelage, to become the best of all possible demons—”_

“That’s nice and all,” Adam says, right on time, mercifully yanking Shiro’s mind out of that spiral. “But the fact that you no longer look like a Hellhound turned you into a midnight snack? Doesn’t erase the fact that I watched on while it happened, helpless to stop it.”

“You _did_ have options for dealing with that grief,” Uncle Mitch chimes in over his second mug of coffee. “Your _family_ kept calling you, trying to make sure you were okay, until you finally up and decided to disconnect your old phone.”

“Wait, you did _what_ —”

“Don’t be mad, Takashi. I’ll give you all the number for my new—”

“Yeah, you’re damn right, you’ll give us that number—”

“For what it’s worth,” Lotor says primly, “I strenuously advised against him cutting the family off like that. Any number of my brethren would have wrought considerable destruction for the honor of putting Adam’s head on a platter and presenting it to Lilith. That was _not_ the right time for him to play the lone wolf.”

“Technically, it’s _never_ the right time for anyone to play the lone wolf,” Shiro mutters. “Actual lone wolves, in the wild? They get depressed without having a pack to rely on, and since they can’t hunt, they starve to death.”

“Exactly my point, darling. I would have preferred a support network at several points in the past few months—”

“ _You_ could have called us too, sweetheart.” Mom’s trying to scold him, but it comes out a few shades too fondly. She’s had a soft spot for Lotor practically since he first invited himself into their lives, determined to help stop Lilith and accidentally befriending Shiro on the way. “Unless he had you magically bound and forbidden from calling, you had your own phone.”

“Very true, I made my own choices on that point. However…” Slumping back in his and Adam’s side of the booth, Lotor lets his long legs sprawl as far as their cramped space will allow. Lips twisted up in a pensive pout, he makes one of those offhanded, dismissive sounds of his, as though this will convince anyone that he isn’t nudging his knee into Shiro’s. “I elected _not_ to betray Adam’s trust. Had he behaved like more of an active danger to himself, I would have broken my promise not to call anyone until he deemed himself ready. Since he was _not_ —”

“If it means you two can work together without sniping at each other every twenty seconds?” Shiro’s smile feels pretty wan, but he makes an effort, and that should count for something. “Then I’m okay with however you made it happen, alright? You’re both alive, intact, and now that I have a phone again, we’re all done with this stupid ‘not calling each other’ thing, so if you ask me? Everything’s copacetic.”

“As much as it can be, under the circumstances.” For a moment, Adam doesn’t explain what he means with that crack. Instead, he lets himself get caught up in twirling his fork through his pasta. When he notices that he’s effectively curtailed the banter, he sighs. “Not that I’m not beside myself with joy to see you back? Obviously, I am. But do we have any ideas about what brought you back or why? Aside from, ‘Adam made a Deal,’ since I didn’t?”

Shiro shrugs. “Maybe it was Mothman. Or Godzilla. Maybe Guillermo del Toro accidentally made a gay, sexy monster tulpa while working on the script for his next movie, and now that gay, sexy monster tulpa wants elope with me, what do I know. Marriage equality should cover sexy monsters too, right?”

“While I am gladdened that Hell didn’t change you that much, Starlight? We need to start thinking up _actual_ ideas—”

“There _aren’t_ any,” Lotor says, “which I believe is Shiro’s attempted point—”

“Well, we need to find some. Here, I’ll start us off: maybe Ulaz decided to do something besides snark, rhapsodize about how much he adores Kashi, stare at his ass, and steal all our apples.”

“He’s a Shinigami,” Shiro points out, deadpan. “First of all, you should show him more respect. Secondly, Azazel possessing him to fulfill the terms of Jacob’s Deal? That was a rare occurrence. According to Ulaz, Shinigami and the Abrahamic contingent mostly try not to bother each other.”

“Maybe Lilith needed you to be on Earth for some thickety, asinine Lilith reason. Maybe she let you go, like she did Lotor.”

“Unlikely, my dear. Lilith only freed me from her clutches this past summer as a personal favor to Honerva. Lucifer’s First does not easily tire of her toys—”

“Hey, I’m not _anybody’s_ boy-toy,” Shiro huffs. “Y’know, not unless Doctor Bashir and Garak are in the market for a boy-toy.”

“Takashi, _please_ focus.” Heaving a sigh, Adam shoves his glasses up and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Alright, so it’s unlikely that Lilith let you go. We can’t conclusively rule it out yet, but that’s probably not what happened. What about her enemies, though?”

“I think you may not entirely understand the position that Lilith occupies in demonic culture, _sulchara_.” After throwing out that Galra-language word for _“sunshine,”_ as casually intimate with Adam as his previous use of the Altean term for _“beloved,”_ Lotor hums, pursing his lips like he can’t decide whether or not he wants to get into this discussion, right now. Whatever misgivings he’s having, though, he explains, “I do not exaggerate in calling her, ‘Lucifer’s First.’ Once upon a time, the Abrahamic God decided that He loved humans, which made Lucifer furious. By that point, Lilith had already gotten herself thrown out of Eden for refusing to be sexually submissive to the first Adam. Out of spite for his Father, Lucifer transformed Lilith into the first demon—”

“This doesn’t sound like the version they tell in demon Sunday school—”

“Oh, absolutely not, Shiro. The propaganda paints a far more glorious picture, relating the story in a way that, ultimately, quite divorces itself from reality.” Rubbing one of his eyes, Lotor grumbles. “True, some demons do not much appreciate Lilith for a variety of reasons. But almost none would dare to challenge her. Plenty of us do truly see her as a demonic messiah—”

“Alright, fine,” Adam sighs. “So, she doesn’t have enemies who’d get Kashi out—”

“That isn’t the only thing. We are, all of us, deeply understating what it _means_ that Shiro has returned to us.” Lotor squirms uncomfortably and hugs himself. “Human souls do not simply walk out of Hell. The sky bleeds. The earth quakes. This is an event of unspeakable cosmic significance.” He tugs his fingers through his bangs, concluding, “No demon could have made this happen.”

“Not to be Commander Obvious,” Uncle Mitch chimes in, dropping his voice conspiratorially, “but maybe we oughta be looking at the _opposite_ of demons.” When this mostly gets him stared at in silence, he rolls his good eye. “We’ve got a pile of lore and research back at home, boys. Biblical and pre-Biblical alike, you’ve got stuff like Jasher and Enoch—Hell, some of it’s in sam hecking _cuneiform_ —all about angels—”

“No.” The word snaps out of Shiro before he knows what his mouth is doing. Something in him shivers, even if no one else notices, and he nudges his empty plate away, can’t look at it, can’t think about this or anything, not with the way his thoughts start rushing. Not with the fevered litany of objections cropping up from everyone else at his table. Clinging to any scrap of reality that he can find, Shiro digs his palm against the edge. “No, no, absolutely not. I’m willing to buy into a lot of things, but _angels_? Don’t talk crazy—”

“Starlight,” Adam sighs, “how can you be a skeptic right now? You, the man who literally crawled out of Hell two days ago?”

“Because I want something more like _evidence_ and less like Disney animated fairy tale _garbage_.”

“Kashi,” Mom chimes in, “you know Mitch wouldn’t cite lore if he didn’t think there were valid reason to believe it.”

“I _do_ know that. But I _also_ know that the person I heard the most about angels from? Was Pastor Jim.” He could make his point without kicking Adam’s shin underneath the table—but Shiro bats his boot at Adam anyway. “You remember those old lessons, right, Sunshine? The ones we got when Jacob ditched us with Jim and swore he’d only be gone for two days, three at the most?”

Nudging his glasses up, Adam pulls a sour face. “I remember a painfully earnest old white man telling me angels are good, and soft, and of course they understand that me being Jewish isn’t my fault, they won’t hold it against me—”

“Yeah, and I remember him telling me we had angels watching over us while slipping whisky in my juice so I’d shut up and go to bed.” With a huff, Shiro shoves himself out of the booth. Mom tries to catch his jacket’s sleeve, and he’ll apologize later for blowing her off. Right this second, he needs some breathing room. “Look, I’m gonna hit the head, but when I get back? Can we all collectively move on from the angel crap and discuss some _actual_ options? Thanks.”

  


* * *

  


One thing Shiro will say for Molly’s Diner: they do serve up pretty good french fries.

Another thing he’ll say for them: they keep the men’s room clean, even if he could do without hearing Hank Williams. Then again, no one can blame the employees for what an area DJ decides to play and maybe someone left that little portable radio sitting on the counter. The song soon enough fades out into a song that Shiro likes, though— _“Love is a burning thing, and it makes a fiery ring”_ —so, he can endure a stranger’s fondness for white people country music.

Except for how he tenses while Johnny Cash sings, _“I fell into a burning ring of fire. I went down, down, down—”_

Shiro slams the radio’s power button, turning it off. Bracing himself on the counter, he forces himself to inhale as slowly as possible. Still feels like he isn’t getting any air. His mind rushes like it might start spinning—his stomach drops, trying to escape his body—his heart beats faster and faster, pounds harder and harder, and none of his deep breaths help. His chest is too tight for him, ribs clamping down around his lungs, punishing him for daring to breathe. Which damn well might be in Shiro’s future—what if he should’ve stayed dead? What if the universe is only setting itself right?

 _“The taste of love is sweet,”_ Johnny Cash croons, blissfully unaware of Shiro’s plight, _“when hearts like ours meet—”_

Trumpets blare in the song and Shiro flinches. It’s stupid—all of this is stupid, everything he’s doing—nothing is screaming at him. The sounds are only music. He grips onto the sink, knuckles straining his skin, fingers trying to bury themselves in the counter as if the pain will remind Shiro where reality lies, how concrete it is. Because he’s fine. He’s _fine_. He is alive, and out of Hell, and Sendak cannot hurt him anymore because Shiro got away from him, and _he is_ ** _NOT_** _in Hell_ —

_“I fell into a burning ring of fire—”_

A cough bursts out of Shiro as something scratches at the inside his throat. Then, it clouds up his insides, impenetrably thick and permafrost cold, and fuck, he wishes he had a hand or forearm or tentacle or _something_ bearing down on his windpipe. If Shiro has that, he’d be choking for real, instead of panting and trying to breathe and getting nowhere for it and feeling heat sting in his eyes while the rest of him freezes over and—

Shiro gasps. His shoulder burns—his left shoulder—his shoulder and part of his bicep, all blazing like the first touch of a heating pad on stiffened muscles. Maybe it should hurt, searing like this, but the warmth spreads through Shiro gently, ebbing and flowing, coaxing him into deeper breaths. Moreover, those actually reach him. The fog in his head starts clearing as more oxygen hits his bloodstream, as his chest expands, those coils of fear loosening so that he can catch a breath that actually means anything.

As he’s steadying himself, or trying to, Shiro bows his head. Hanging outside his t-shirt, his silver chain necklace rustles like a breeze is coming through. Obaasan and Ojiisan’s wedding rings tinkle and clink against each other, the way they always do when one or both of the kami attached to them want to remind their Kashi that they’re here for him. Maybe he died and went to Hell instead of joining them and generations of his ancestors, as he should have, but now that he’s back, Obaasan and Ojiisan will look out for him, as they always did before.

That knowledge helps settle Shiro’s nerves even further—having his late loved ones’ spirits with him helps more than anybody realizes—but then, more warmth caresses his right shoulder. He trembles under the feeling like someone gently squeezing both of his arms, like tongues of flame licking at him. He doesn’t combust, though, but only feels like someone’s put burning stars inside his chest, an unfathomable number of them, clustered together and all for him. Heat hits the top of his spine like a breath of fire, as if someone’s tenderly kissing the back of his neck.

On one hand, Shiro feels like he could take on any challenge, surmount any foe who crossed him, and do anything he set his mind to, fueled by the internal galaxy he’s been given and the wildfire that blooms inside him. On the other hand, though, he knows better than to trust a feeling like this. Getting cocky like that leads to hunters getting killed.

_“When you’re weary, feeling small. When tears are in your eyes, I will dry them all…”_

As the song changes again—switching to Cash and Fiona Apple’s duet of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”; maybe this station’s only playing Johnny Cash, this hour—Shiro tries to suss out the warm presence at his back. Identifying who or what it is might help, or at least give Shiro a good start on deciding what to do, but all he comes up with are things the presence isn’t.

For instance, it feels nothing like Obaasan or Ojiisan, with her bright, explosive flares of stubborn mischief and his deep wells of patience and compassion. The presence also doesn’t feel like Ulaz, and besides, he would manifest himself, if he were visiting. Most humans never know when Ulaz is around or not, but ever since their first meeting, when Ulaz had meant to shepherd Shiro along into the realms of Death, that Shinigami’s had a fondness for him.

Even less likely, Sendak—sure, he could’ve easily found himself a meat-suit and come to steal his _sweet boy_ back Downstairs. Sendak’s presence would bring on a chill, from Shiro’s reactions to him if not from Sendak himself. Or maybe there’s _no one_ here and this is all in Shiro’s head.

 _“Like a bridge over troubled water,”_ the Man In Black insists, _“I will lay me down—”_

Static crackles as the music dips. Shiro swallows thickly. “Goddammit,” he mutters. “This again?”

 _“Like a bridge over troubled water. I_ —” The song distorts, going lower than Cash’s growly baritone. More static punctuates his singing, and stranger still, the lyrics shuffle around. Rather than playing how they always do, they come out as, “ _I—am—lay—lee—Hell_ —”

“Lay lee Hell?” Shifting onto one palm, Shiro pinches the bridge of his nose. He probably only fails to break anything because he can’t resist the impulse to rub his thumb along his scar. Even though no one’s listening, Shiro snarks, “I’ve never heard of Lee Hell—unfortunate name, by the way, like really, deeply unfortunate—but I’ll take a tumble with pretty much anybody, if he’s hot and/or his money’s good. He’ll probably be laying _me_ , rather than the other way around, but—”

“ _Stop talking like that_ ,” snaps out of the radio in a voice that definitely does not belong to Johnny Cash, for all it kind of sounds like his. It’s not Fiona Apple’s either, though Shiro would swear he makes out traces of her emotive, sultry contralto.

As soon as he thinks so, Shiro hears the low, booming bass and nihilistically jangling keyboard line from one of his favorite songs of hers. Last year, after running into Liam again up in Cicero, Indiana, then saving his little brother from those changelings, Shiro listened to “Tymps (The Sick In The Head Song)” so many times that Adam vetoed their, _“Driver picks the music, Shotgun shuts his cakehole”_ rule and gave his Starlight a six-week ban from playing anything off Fiona’s _Extraordinary Machine_ album. For a moment, hearing this song lets Shiro breathe easily.

Only a few bars play before more static cuts them short. Then, the radio speaks again, cobbling together traces of several different voices as it tells Shiro, “ _I am with you. You want to know who I am. So, I am telling you: my name is Lay-lee-ell.”_

“Uh huh, sure. Because that’s totally a name that anybody has.” Fuck, why did Shiro let Adam leave the EMF meter in the car? It’s not like Lotor would’ve set it off; the thing doesn’t register demonic entities. “I guess I could call you ‘Layla,’ but then I’d only be able to think of that Eric Clapton song, the one he probably wrote about banging George Harrison’s wife.”

Actually, Shiro’s more likely to dwell on thoughts of Layla Rourke, and how much better she deserved than what happened to her. Tumors might be natural, but anyone with two brain cells to rub together could’ve seen that she deserved to be saved so much more than Shiro did. On the plus, one of the “courtesies” Sendak gave him, when he was in the mood to play with Shiro more gently, was checking the records of every soul in Hell. Layla’s name wasn’t written down in any of their books of sinners, so she’s probably with Hades and Persephone—or Shiro certainly hopes that’s where she wound up.

“ _I am no one’s wife. Nor am I the Layla you are thinking of right now._ ” With no regard for the way it briefly makes Shiro’s heart stop beating, the static rustles louder. It only dims once more when the radio makes a huffing sound. “ _But other humans have called me ‘Layla’ and variations of that name before. I would give you the letters, but their arrangement changes from language to language, or even within different languages—standardized spellings are such a recent invention. Then, transliterating Hebrew can prove problematic—_ ”

“Sounds like you’ve been around for a long time.” Shiro frowns as the radio buzzes like it’s agreeing with him. “What are you, then? Some kind of extra-dramatic Jewish ghost? Would Adam know the lore about you?”

“ _He almost certainly would, but…_ ” That chorus of mixed up voices hums as if the creature’s considering something and weighing several very serious options. “ _You would not believe me if I told you of my true nature, Takashi Shirogane._ ”

“Which sounds like a perfectly bullshit excuse to not tell me anything—”

“ _Matters of cattle do not interest me. I have larger concerns_ —”

“Yeah, right. Do your larger concerns include what happened at the fill-up joint, the other day?” Another noise of assent from the radio makes Shiro huff. “Y’know, I made Mom and Uncle Mitch stop there so I could pay those people back for the drinks and snacks I took. Are _you_ gonna do anything to cover the cost of blowing out all their windows and their lights? Replacing them could get pricey for a backwoods place like that.”

The static gets louder again as the Lay-lee-ell groans. If this thing were in front of Shiro right now, no doubt it would roll its eyes—and then, Shiro would stick it with Lotor’s knife. “ _Does it truly bother you so much that I overwhelmed that building’s physical structure? I assure you, I did not intend for that to happen. Would you take it as a gesture of goodwill if I set everything back to how it was?_ ”

“I mean, you could’ve done serious damage to the livelihoods of innocent people, so? Yeah, fixing what you broke would be a good start—”

A rush like wind cuts Shiro off. Something flutters like wings, and he’d swear he feels feathers brush against the small of his back. Cold swoops into the men’s room and Shiro bundles himself tighter in Uncle Mitch’s old jacket. Before he’s even allowed himself to shiver, though, that warm presence returns. A little burst of flame flicks across the top of Shiro’s spine, maybe swatting him but maybe giving him another kiss. It’s hard to tell when everything he can see says that he’s in here by himself, no one else around.

Another sighing sound comes from the radio, though this one sounds more hopeful than any of its predecessors. Hopeful and rather like the Lay-lee-ell wants to make itself at home—but perhaps that’s less on the Lay-lee-ell itself and more on Shiro reading into things. Then again, the handprint on his shoulder heats up, the way it did before, and he definitely feels something nestle up against his back. One line of heat slithers around his waist as a different one swelters on the back of his neck. Dimly, he wonders if he should object, but… it’s nice here, wrapped up in this embrace. For the first time in ages, Shiro feels… _safe_.

With a feeling like puckered lips—and a faint _pop!_ from the radio—the presence cocoons itself around Shiro. Images of that backroad gas station flash through his mind. All the windows have been repaired and all the broken lights replaced. Even the dust and dirt have been stripped away, making the entire place sparkle like it’s all brand new while some teenager at the cash register gapes in wonder at what’s happened.

“Thank you,” Shiro murmurs, because it’s polite to show gratitude when a powerful entity grants you a favor, and besides, his parents and godfather raised him right, even if Jacob West sure didn’t. Inhaling deeply, Shiro tries to think, tries to come up with a question that the Lay-lee-ell might answer—“So, how old _are_ you?”

“ _I have lived for untold eons._ ” The radio crackles as the voice-chorus returns to its speakers, telling Shiro, “ _Your pet demon has lived for centuries, but even his lifetime is a mere fraction of my own, Takashi._ ”

“Hey, Lotor is not my _pet_ , okay? He’s my _friend_. There’s a difference—”

“ _He remains a demon. You have seen his true form for yourself, the one he conceals through a vessel_ —”

“Yeah, sure, I know what he’d look like Downstairs. All emaciated with twisty horns, and claws like, and mutilated-looking wings.” Huffing, Shiro digs one palm against the edge of the counter and hopes that the pain helps keep him grounded—at least enough to avoid seriously pissing off the Lay-lee-ell, whatever it thinks it is. “But I also know that Lotor’s one of the only people who’s ever treated me kindly, and demon or not, he’s one of the only people I trust. So, if you talk shit about him, we aren’t gonna get along. That’s just how this works.”

“ _I apologize_ ,” the Lay-lee-ell prisses, static bristling in a way that sounds not-especially-sorry. “ _I will keep this in mind, in the future._ ”

“That’s nice, but who, exactly, says that we’re gonna _have_ a future together?”

Grumbling in a language that Shiro doesn’t recognize, the Lay-lee-ell sounds like someone who’s careening up against their limits of being able to handle a conversation. For all this isn’t the first time Shiro’s made a sapient monster tire of dealing with him, it _is_ the first time his heart’s twisted in guilt over doing that. While the static crackles quietly, Shiro wonders if he should apologize—but why is he even _considering_ doing that, when this _Lay-lee-ell_ , whoever they are, is talking to him through a freaking _radio_? He doesn’t even know what they are, but their answer for him comes in the form of heavy, plodding music.

Shiro groans as Johnny Cash’s voice starts up again, singing, _“I’ve been down on bended knee—”_

“No—”

_“Talkin’ to the man from Galilee—”_

“Were you recently in New Mexico, then?”

_“He spoke to me in the voice so sweet—”_

“I hear he’s on a tortilla—”

 _“I thought I heard the shuffle of angels’ feet,”_ blasts more louder than the other lyrics.

“Except there’s no such _thing_ as angels.” Shaking his head at another burst of agitated static, Shiro tacks on, “Y’know, if you really want to talk to me so badly, how come you keep using Johnny Cash to do it? Can’t you let the man rest in peace and talk to me for yourself?”

The song cuts out and in the ensuing static, Shiro picks out something that distinctly sounds like, “ _As you wish.”_

Another rush like wings and the handprint on his arm starts burning. The air pulses, just like it did at the gas station the other day, and then, everything rings out all over again. Clear as a bell, that voice clatters around the men’s room, rattles the overhead lights—Shiro whips into the corner, by the door. He ducks to his knees, buries his face in his legs. Covering his ears doesn’t make this hurt any less. He hears something crack. The bulbs above him hum, then start blowing out. Over the sink, the mirror shatters, glass and plating clatter to the tile floor.

Then, all of a sudden, the noise stops. Everything shuts up, like nothing even happened.

Blinking, Shiro looks around the darkened room. Not that he can see much, with only the faint stream of sunlight, filtered through the diner and then through the bottom of the door. Stranger than anything, he doesn’t need to force himself to keep breathing. Each inhale comes deeply, evenly, and if he didn’t know better, he’d swear he feels feathers brushing against his cheek.

  


* * *

  


Leaving the restroom, Shiro stumbles into a downright scandal. Glass scattered everywhere, windows and lights all blown out—dammit, that creature sure can do a number on unsuspecting people. Voices all raise up in a clamor, whispering and shouting alike. A baby cries out over top of all of them, clutched to their mother’s chest, hidden underneath a table that looks blessedly free of too many broken shards. The mother doesn’t look hurt, either. Very few people in here do. Some minor cuts, most likely, because shattered glass makes those pretty unavoidable—but at least it doesn’t seem like anyone needs a trip to the emergency room.

Over at his own table, Shiro finds the family intact, if rattled. They’re pulling themselves up from the floor, Lotor helping Adam dodge the glass while Mom pretends Uncle Mitch doesn’t have a hand held out for her to take. None of them got hurt, no doubt thanks to fantastic reflexes. When Shiro confirms that he’s genuinely fine, they heave a collective sigh of relief—which Adam quickly drops in favor of wrinkling his nose like a particularly perplexed rabbit.

“You seem significantly less ruffled than I would’ve expected, Starlight,” he says with a huff.

“Went through this already, at the fill-up joint after I crawled out of my grave. Plus, whatever this thing is? It started talking to me through the radio.” Trying to play this casual, Shiro rubs at his right hip, at his tattoo of the original eight-stripe rainbow pride flag. “Mentioned its name, though, so we’ve got a new clue. Any of you ever heard of something called a _Lay-lee-ell_?”

While Mom and Uncle Mitch purse their lips, Lotor and Adam trade pointed looks. The silence that drops onto their table reeks of significance, and Shiro can’t put his finger on why. No one answers him immediately, either, which grates Shiro’s nerves like they’re made of fancy, overpriced cheese.

Finally, though, Lotor sighs. “Do you want to tell him, my dear, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it, just—you are _really_ not gonna like this, Starlight—”

“I didn’t like hearing Bela tell me she sold the Colt. Rip off the bandaid already.”

“Leliel comes from the Talmud. Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin—and plenty of other sources, some of which I haven’t actually read, but…” Inhaling deeply, Adam gives Shiro a long, pleading look. “According to the lore, Starlight, Leliel’s an angel.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this specific fic is only covering “Lazarus Rising,” there will likely only be two chapters after this: shenanigans at the library, both of the “researching some lore” variety and of the, “Shiro and Lotor talk about Hell, and specifically discuss Sendak, who is, as ever, a Real Piece Of Work” variety; and then Iverson and Shiro go to a barn in the middle of nowhere and summon Leliel, who shows up in the flesh of a messy-haired, leggy pretty boy with big purple eyes and a red leather jacket, and who doesn’t mind being called by his vessel’s name, if that makes Shiro feel more comfortable.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Shiro and Leliel attempt to have a conversation, Lotor attempts to out-stubborn Shiro about the existence of angels, Shiro’s memories of a human boy named Keith Kogane have him quite convinced that Leliel is probably lying, and Shiro’s tarot cards are well and truly Tired of his shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no see, huh?
> 
> First, **content notes/warnings for this chapter:** references to Shiro’s time in Hell; references to torture and past non-con, as part of Shiro’s time in Hell; discussion of Jacob West, Adam’s father, abusing him and Shiro; references to underage sex work and underage sexual abuse; discussion of teenage!Shiro’s belief that he wouldn’t get into college without blowing the admissions board and how it came out of teachers bullying and abusing him for being neurodivergent (ADHD!Shiro, in particular) but undiagnosed; and some discussion of religion because, well…… angels. demons. Lotor explaining some things about the internal politics of Hell.
> 
> As far as shipping goes, this chapter also references, in varying degrees of explicit-ness:
> 
>   * **past Adam/Shiro** ~~(I mean, being this reality’s Wincest makes “erotically codependent” part of the package)~~ ;  
>    
> 
>   * past “loving but non-romantic, call it queerplatonic because the other guy involved is aromantic” sex between Shiro and an OMC (Yuki);  
>    
> 
>   * past relationships between Shiro and guys who are vaguely analogous to Lisa Braeden (here, a guy named Liam, much like how Adam’s Jessica was a guy named Jeff), and Cassie Robinson (here, her OC little brother, Paris);  
>    
> 
>   * the past Sendak/Shiro mentioned in the tags, which remains a fucky, non-con trash-fire that Sendak thinks is True Love because he wants it to be;  
>    
> 
>   * past Shiro/Dionysus.…… Yes, like the Greek god of wine and ritual madness.…… They crossed paths on a hunt, and Dionysus wanted to mack on Shiro. Can you blame him, really?;  
>    
> 
>   * past Shiro/ ~~Lust~~ Asmodeus, inspired by Dean’s encounter with the demon called Lust in “The Magnificent Seven,” with the biggest changes being that Shiro’s demon was in a male host-body and I changed the world-building on the Seven Deadly Sins because I’m still annoyed that SPN canon underutilized them;  
>    
> 
>   * Shiro turning tricks while underage so he and Adam could eat after the money they had ran out while Jacob was on a hunt;  
>    
> 
>   * and a past abusive relationship between Shiro and another OMC, this one a fellow hunter named Jason, who started abusing Shiro, including sexual abuse, when Shiro was twelve and Jason was thirty (though he lied about being significantly younger). **This relationship is NOT discussed very explicitly** , but the references to it are still there.
> 

> 
> Second, **a quick explanatory note about Keith and Leliel:** so, if one were to ask me whether human!Keith Kogane or the angel Leliel is “the Real Keith,” my answer would be, “Yes.” Both of human!Keith and angel!Leliel reflect and embody different aspects of VLD!Keith. Rather than human!Keith being completely subsumed by angel!Leliel—like you see with Cas and Jimmy, and with most of the other angels—human!Keith and angel!Leliel are coming together to make the whole character of VLD!Keith.
> 
> ……They haven’t gotten to that point yet, and right now, Leliel is currently displaying, “[Jimmy]’s a devout man, he actually prayed for this [to be my vessel]” levels of Castiel Not Understanding Things That Humans Take For Granted. But Keith and Leliel will get there, eventually. Not in this specific episode, but before this reality’s take on “Lucifer Rising.” (Also, no, this isn’t what SPN did with angels, but trying to make SPN canon work exactly as presented in the show was giving me a headache and making me give up parts of Sheith, as a ship, that I didn’t want to give up.)
> 
> Third: ……most of this chapter is high-key, “The author (me) using some of her Special Interests as world-building, foreshadowing, and a few other things of narrative significance because she needed to get those things done and using her Special Interests to do it sounded fun.” The Special Interests on display today are tarot interpretation and mythology (especially but not exclusively demonology).
> 
> Also, we are still talking about angels and demons in the middle of a public place because Supernatural.
> 
> And finally: there are two more scenes that were originally part of this chapter, but they’ve been turned into chapter five (which is mostly written, albeit getting typed up because I wrote it longhand). I have mixed feelings about breaking them up, because one of them explains some more of what’s going on with human!Keith—but this part of the chapter was going on so long that, mentally, I needed to break them up, so here we are.

Sunlight beats down on Shiro’s face, a breeze gusts over the dirt road beneath his feet, and he knows he’s dreaming.

Ever since the misadventure with Bela and the African Dream-Root, Shiro can always tell when he’s dreaming. Weird long-term side-effect, not something that she prepared him for dealing with, and it generally sucks the enjoyment out of sexy dreams. Yet, as far as ripple effects go, Shiro could do worse than mild dissatisfaction while dreaming about the pretty boys he’d like to sleep with, or wandering down some isolated country road, knowing that it isn’t real.

The road _does_ feel familiar, but so do most country roads that Shiro’s ever wandered down. You really need to mind the details and your surroundings to get the individual character of any given road. Without them, everywhere starts looking more or less the same. At least when the rest-stop fast food joints blend together, there’s a reason. Some corporate suits designed them to be virtually identical; Mother Nature has no excuse.

Last thing he recalls is curling up in Ariel’s backseat while Mom, Uncle Mitch, Adam, and Lotor debated who was going where. Apparently, Ohio State’s main library has some good lore hidden in its stacks and in certain rooms that, were Adam a student here, he’d need special dispensation and an appointment with a research librarian to enter. Of course, Sunshine wants to go ferret around in all the books; he’s good at research and he genuinely enjoys getting up to his eyes in scholarly and/or Talmudic debates about this translation or the significance of that recently unearthed evidence.

No point in Shiro chiming into the discussion, though. Everyone’s made pretty good time of progressing from, _“Oh, Kashi, it’s so amazing that you’re back from Hell and in one piece, it’s a miracle”_ to, _“If you’re going to be so stubborn about angels actually existing or not, why don’t you take a nap and let the rest of us talk_ ** _without_** _your sarcasm”_ —which is fine. It’s the finest of all possible fine things for Shiro to hear right now.

Either way, Shiro keeps walking down this dream-road. Until he spots something gleaming in the distance, there isn’t much else to do beyond walk and hum “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” Darting in the direction of that shine, Shiro wonders if he hasn’t seen this road in real life before. The feeling of recognition clings to him, teases through the back of his mind like it knows something that he doesn’t know and needs him to be aware of that fact. As he follows the glimmer off the road, into a meadow, and down a hill, Shiro can’t help the warmth twisting through his chest—

_Ha, guys, check out the freak._

Shiro fumbles to a halt. Whips around in the grass. Looks every which way, searching for the source of that cold, mocking laughter—but he’s alone. Another breeze rolls through like hot breath ghosting down his spine. Almost feels like someone’s joined him.

But Shiro can’t see anybody, not even someone’s silhouette. Nobody jumps out of the scenery until he’s at the bottom of the hill.

The pond before him, Shiro should definitely remember. Smallish, not particularly clear nor particularly crowded, insistently nondescript, as if it can avoid upsetting anybody by refusing to stand out on its own merits—and Shiro knows that he should know this place. He knows that he’s been here before, out in the real world.

Moreover, as he approaches the long-legged, white-robed figure by the water’s edge, something about them feels like they’ve met before. Even without seeing their face—even only seeing those lean arms and their longish, black hair rustling in the spring-breath air that passes over them—Shiro _knows_ them. He’s certain of it.

“I should certainly _hope_ that you know me, Takashi Shirogane.” Shiro stops in his tracks again, voice caught in his throat. The figure eases themself up in a fluid motion, as if some unseen force helps them do it. “Of course, you can be quite brash in your _typical_ attitude toward most other sapient beings, but…” They take a deep breath, roll out their shoulders. Their feet shift in the dirt. “I hope that I was not so forgettable.”

The figure turns around and Shiro gasps. Those eyes—wide, and glimmering, somewhere between indigo and violet, watching Shiro as if the universe begins and ends with him—Shiro _knows_ those eyes. He knows their thick, black lashes and the pale, pointy face surrounding them. Inexplicably, something about them feels _off_ —maybe it’s the chill beneath their gleam—but he **_knows_** those eyes. If only he could put his finger on _why_ he knows them.

Jerking Shiro out of his thoughts, the figure shuffles into his personal space.

“I’m the one who gripped you tight and raised you from Perdition,” they say, peering up at him without blinking, which makes Shiro’s skin crawl like worms burrowing through his muscles. “My name is Leliel. I thought this visage would be best for attempting another conversation.”

“Uh huh, sure— _visage_. What the Hell visage are you in, exactly?”

“A borrowed shape. The face of my vessel—”

“ _Vessel_? Pretty cute euphemism you’ve got there.”

“It’s the accurate term. As water flows into a jug, so too would my essence inhabit a body that can contain me.”

Shiro snorts incredulously. “Listen, buddy: I don’t know who taught you how to negotiate, but if you really want to convince me that you’re on the level? Telling me that you possess people isn’t the way to go about it.”

“Your pet _demon_ —” Inhaling sharply, Leliel cuts themself off. “…Your _friend_ possesses people. … _Lotor_ , I mean to say.”

“Lotor possesses bodies whose souls have already moved on. By the way, slandering him in front of me? _Also_ not a good move.”

With their face scrunched up, Leliel looks like an irate, sullen kitten. That expression makes Shiro tilt his head as if a slight change in angle might help him pick out what’s striking this unspeakably familiar chord in the pit of his chest. He’s seen these eyes before. He’s seen a _face_ like this before, giving him this same look, a mix of suspicion and resentment, as if Leliel wants to tell Shiro—

“You _are_ better than this, than the way you’re acting.” They shake their head and black bangs flop artfully across their forehead. “I hardly see the point in _telling_ you so when you already know. Explaining myself seems similarly pointless, when you’ve already made up your mind about what I am.”

Pursing his lips, Shiro holds up one finger. “First of all? Do _not_ read my mind.” He counts off a second, and keeps going with them. “ _Second_ , do **_not_** read my mind, especially when you’re talking to me directly. Third, I have no idea what you are, but the more you say, the more I’m thinking I was _right_ to guess that you’re some big, bad-ass demon—” Leliel glowers, looking even more kittenish, and Shiro chuckles before he can think to stop himself. “Come on, _Leliel_ —if that even _is_ your name—”

“You asked in good faith, mostly. Why would I tell you anything _but_ my true name?”

“I don’t know _why_ people lie to me; I just assume that they _do_ and act accordingly. Except with Adam, Lotor, Mom, Dad, Uncle Mitch, and precious few exceptions? Nine-hundred ninety-nine-thousand, nine hundred and nine times out of a million, I end up being _right_.” Maybe Shiro should leave well enough alone, keep his next thought to himself—but he adds, “ _Jimothy_ doesn’t lie to me. I mean, sure, he only cares about _Adam_ , out of the two of us, but that ignorant little pot-head’s usually too _baked_ to even _think_ about lying to me.”

Leliel should probably throw a punch now, or at least another borderline-deadpan retort.

Instead, their shoulders droop and their frown softens ever so slightly. “That sounds so lonely,” they whisper, edging closer to Shiro. _Close enough to kiss_ , he can’t help thinking. “You shut people out before they can dream of getting close to you. Rather than afford them an opportunity to harm you like so many others have, you deny them _any_ chance to prove themselves. You deny _yourself_ —”

“Hey, you didn’t let me get to this rule of mine? So, I’ll forgive you this time—but do _not_ psychoanalyze me, _angel_. Quit prying into my damn head, _period_ , while you’re at it.”

They huff, shooting Shiro an expression that knows exactly what he meant, sneering the word _angel_ like he did, but doesn’t want to dignify that immaturity with any attention—and Shiro supposes that he can’t blame them. He exhausts most beings who try to deal with him, after all. “All I intended to say was that my vessel would relate with how you conduct yourself, Takashi. He walls himself off from people, too.”

Leliel drops their gaze, defensively hunching their shoulders and taking away Shiro’s ability to look at those horribly, inexplicably familiar eyes. “So many have left him before, or decided that he was worthless, or chosen to hurt him. Now, he pushes people away before they can reject him. Certain people—special people—can get through to him—just as certain special people can perceive my true face or hear my true voice without being overwhelmed by them—”

“That’s why you had to talk through the radio?” Shiro folds his arms over his chest as if this might keep Leliel from learning anything from him. “Because I’m not _special_ enough to hear you? I mean, fair enough, I’m not exactly swimming in moral fiber over here—”

“That isn’t true—”

“You just. said.— _literally_ just said—that only _special_ people can hear you—”

“Because my true voice can too easily overpower most human beings. This has nothing to do with your character; it’s an arbitrary fact of your existence—”

“Well, that sounds about as fair as the medieval Church only performing Mass in Latin—”

“We are not here to discuss the medieval Church—”

“Maybe that’s all I _want_ to discuss with the likes of you,” Shiro snarls. Leliel tries to glare at him, but Shiro glowers back, meeting their gaze and shooting them all the cold fury that he can muster. “Why should I want to _discuss_ anything with a monster who possesses people and acts like it’s okay?”

“It is an _unfortunate_ reality of my _species_. Human minds can only handle so much power, especially when meeting that which defies your comprehension. Exposure to the raw Grace and quintessence that my kind are made of…” They sigh, bowing their head as if in guilt—yeah. Right. Like Leliel understands what _guilt_ is. “ _One_ encounter with my true form has already seared your soul, Takashi, and the mark that my essence left on you will never disappear.”

When they glance up again, Shiro expects to get another dirty look. Instead, he follows their gaze to his shoulder—his _right_ shoulder. Shiro shucks out of his jacket and his flannels; as they flutter to the ground, he jerks up his t-shirt’s sleeve. Sunlight glints off the handprint brand. The welts gleam like the garnet inlaid in the silver ring that Bennett gave to Uncle Mitch, once upon a time. What Shiro wouldn’t give to have that ring right now. He couldn’t get much out of the _“forever yours”_ engraved on the outside of the band, but the garnet has some minor protective abilities and Bennett designed and carved the sigils inside the band himself.

At least Leliel doesn’t comment on his thoughts. So, they’re making progress on that count.

Shiro rolls his sleeve so it should stay in place. “ _You_ put this brand on me?” Leliel nods slowly, and maybe Shiro shouldn’t laugh? But it bursts out of him like a gunshot before he can stop himself. “Angel, seriously? You have _got_ to negotiate safe-words before playing around with folks like that— _especially_ when you’re meeting for the first time. Didn’t The Crucible go over that when you showed up for new member orientation?”

After several failed attempts at responding, Leliel shakes their head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Why would a container for molten metal teach me… Well, anything, I suppose? Unless you mean ‘crucible’ in the figurative sense?”

“No, it… It’s a place? A nightclub, like. Where people with certain, uh, _adventurous_ tastes can…” Shiro gestures at nothing in particular. “Whatever, it’s not important.”

“If what you’ve said is of import to you, Takashi, then I want to know—”

“It’s _not_ of import, though. I was making a joke, okay? The sort of stupid and tasteless that’d make Adam get all, ‘Huff, huff, Starlight, why do you always act like we should think you’re stupid’—”

“Why would he need to _ask_ you that?” Leliel’s shoulders wilt as they frown at Shiro. “Is it not obvious to someone who loves you that you denigrate and dismiss your own intelligence out of deep-rooted trauma and feelings of poor self-worth? …Not that I am attempting to psychoanalyze you,” they hastily add. “Because it makes you feel uncomfortable, and you requested that I stop.”

“Right, because you totally care about one stupid human.”

“I don’t care about a _stupid_ human—”

“Exactly my point. You’re possessing a human, then you come swanning into my dreams to try and sell me on your—”

“I _care_ about **_you_** , Takashi.”

Dream or not, Shiro’s heart nearly stops as Leliel’s fingers splay out on his chest. He inhales sharply, almost chokes on his breath. Their hand’s so warm, it might be a miracle they don’t set his shirt on fire. All the while, they stare up at him, eyes aflame with intent.

For all Leliel’s eyes refuse to let Shiro put his finger on why he recognizes them, something about them nags at the back of his mind. The way they gleam—Shiro’s seen it before. Maybe out in the sunshine, just like his dream’s thrown at him, and possibly around a clear, blue lake like this one. He can’t have met _Leliel_ before, can he? Probably not, unless they used a different name when crossing his path. But they’re possessing some poor bastard, so could it maybe…

“Have I met you—I mean, you…” Leliel’s fingertips press into Shiro’s flesh. Heat washes over him, and he shudders. “You called him a ‘vessel,’ right? You and me, we’re still getting to know each other. But have I met _him_ before?”

Leliel nods. “Both of us care for you a great deal, Takashi.”

“How can you say that? You literally _just_ met me—”

“Not literally. The first time we met was when I gripped you tight—”

“Yeah, fine, but you know that doesn’t really _count_ , right? I mean, it’s not like we _talked_ to each other—if you’re telling the truth about saving me in the first place. Which I’m not convinced you are.” This makes Leliel scrunch up their face again, and Shiro shrugs. “All I’m saying is that it makes no sense for an _angel_ to rescue _me_ from Hell. So, how about you help speed things up and tell me what you _really_ are?”

Leliel’s eyes go wide as they insist, “I _told_ you: I’m an angel of the Lord.”

“Right. Sure. Keep lying to me like that. Really makes me feel good about the _future_ that you want us to have.”

Their shoulders sag. “I’m _not_ lying. My garrison led a charge on Hell—one of unprecedented strength—all so that we could free you.”

“Except there’s no such thing as angels—I mean, unless you’re some other monster with delusions of grandeur.”

This gets Leliel to pout, and that expression almost looks adorable. As if it helps them make whatever point they’re going for, they squeeze Shiro’s pec. Another rush of heat rumbles through him. His entire body trembles. His muscles, his veins, his nerves—even his bones can’t help shivering. Leliel smiles at this, but without any malice behind it. Instead, their eyes glimmer so earnestly that Shiro nearly stops breathing.

Above them, the sky goes dark. The wisps of cloud blow up into a heavy gloom, thick and threatening rain. They don’t make good on that, for all they blot out the sun until the sky is nearly painted black. Dimly, Shiro wonders if he should call Mick Jagger. Of course, he doesn’t know _how_ to get in touch with His Majesty Brenda Philip Jagger, but it could hold his interest, hearing that “Paint It Black” has become a prophecy, not a musical recreation of what depression feels like (allegedly). Shiro’s pondering if Bennett’s locator spell could suss out where to find Mick Jagger when he has to have such crazy-good security—

_Crack!_

A lightning flash blazes across the sky. Thunder rolls, still not bringing rain. And for the briefest moment, Shiro sees something in the brightness cast over himself and Leliel, ghostly white and gleaming as they protrude from the vessel’s back, feathers flutter as the joints they’re attached to flex and rustle.

 _Wings_. 

“That…” Shiro feels like he could faint. What even _happens_ if you faint in a dream? “…That’s not possible.”

“This is your problem, Takashi.” Backed by the murmur of his feathers, Leliel locks eyes with Shiro. “You have no faith.”

“What, _seriously_? I’ve got _plenty_ of faith. I have two whole copies of it out in my car—CD _and_ on cassette! Plus, it’s on my mp3 player.” Until this moment, Shiro hasn’t noticed his shirt. Now, though, he sees the design screenprinted on the black fabric: the cover of George Michael’s first solo album, the photo of him posing, face turned in profile, half-hiding in his black leather jacket. As though this proves something, Shiro tugs in his top. “ _See_ , Angel? I have _Faith_.”

“That isn’t the sort of faith that I meant.”

“Maybe I’m not buying what you’re selling—”

“Why _not_? What am I not _providing_ you?”

“First of all, and I can _not_ stress this enough, you are _possessing_ some poor bastard. You _admitted_ it.”

“Keith has a passionate spirit and a drive to do good in the universe; he consented to this.” Leliel sighs, every inch of their so-called visage drooping. “Angels are bound to certain rules as a fact of our existence. One of them is that we do not disrespect our vessels as much as demons do their hosts; we are _better_ than those abominations. If Keith had not said _‘yes,’_ then I could not have taken him.”

Shiro starts to respond. He has so many retorts pent up, right on the tip of his tongue. But that one name— _Keith_ —flips the right switch in his head. Those eyes—those piercing eyes that should not possibly be purple, except they absolutely are—Shiro _recognizes_ them. Last time he saw them, almost a year ago, the boy they belong to showed up during a hunt. He and his only other friend went looking for her little brother in a once-sleepy town that had become a hive of scum and villainy on the same level as Mos Eisley, Tatooine.

Breath snagged in his throat, Shiro steps back from Leliel. He forces himself to keep breathing, even if he can’t get himself steady, exactly. They frown bemusedly, as if he’s slapped them, and for a moment, guilt twists in his chest over making the alleged angel look so hurt. Still, he takes another step back. If Leliel wanted Shiro’s attention so badly, then they’ve gotten it. As he puts a third step between them, Shiro doesn’t look at anything else down by this pond, only at Leliel. Letting his gaze drift anywhere else could mean that he misses a Tell, or some other sign that he’s been right about Leliel’s lies.

“Tell the truth,” he snarls, reaching for one of his concealed switchblades. “What, _exactly_ , is your vessel’s name?”

“It’s _Keith_ ,” Leliel whispers. “Keith Kogane. He regards you quite highly.”

Shiro doesn’t think; he doesn’t need to. He whips out his blade. Lunges at Leliel. Glaring at those eyes—at _Keith’s_ eyes and the distant look that Leliel’s put in them—Shiro stabs Leliel, right in Keith’s stomach.

Leliel doesn’t flinch. They blink up at Shiro, furrowing Keith’s brow. Without saying as much, their expression asks why Shiro would do such a thing, and if he’s entirely finished with being so difficult. No indication of pain anywhere on Keith’s face, merely annoyance and a negative amount of patience.

“I will see you again, Takashi,” Leliel says, slowly raising a hand. “Try to calm down before I do.”

They press two fingers to his forehead and hear flares up throughout his body.

Shiro startles awake, still in Ariel’s backseat. Staring up at his baby’s ceiling, he counts his deep breaths. Whatever’s going on here—and however Leliel’s gotten Keith involved—Shiro won’t help anyone by losing his head in panic.

 

* * *

 

Ultimately, Mom and Lotor drag Shiro to a little Internet café, near the Ohio State campus but possibly not a part of it. Shiro can’t tell, based on their location in Columbus, and the crowd inside the place doesn’t help him place where they’ve wound up, either. Worse, not wanting to help Adam and Uncle Mitch translate lore that’s allegedly about angels has signed Shiro up to behave himself around meat-head frat bros, loudly comparing their tastes in pornos, and wealthy-looking, white hipster kids who apparently sneer at everything that dares to exist in their presence.

Fine, Mom’s explanation for this choice makes sense enough— _“They have space for us and better rates than the other options in town”_ —but it doesn’t mean that Shiro enjoys the prospect of spending time at Bitz ‘n’ Bytez, much less time that will likely involve searching for clues that might indicate angelic interference. As soon as possible, Shiro would like to get back to the world where things in his life make even the slightest bit of sense.

Unfortunately, they only have one computer between the three of them. Shiro doesn’t mind Mom claiming it when she’s better with computers than Lotor and obviously beats Shiro at focusing on more traditional research. Still, he wishes that he had _some_ kind of task assigned to him. Something _useful_. Something more productive than sitting around a coffee-shop, wishing Mom would let him help with the work—never mind the fact that Leliel brought up _Keith_ and all but outright _said_ that he’s embroiled in this garbage.

“What would that nice Dion boy tell you now,” Mom deadpans, plugging in the charge cord for Adam’s laptop, ever unruffled in the face of Shiro’s impatient huffing. “You and Sunshine always make him sound like he appreciates liminal places and situations.”

Face crumpled up in confusion, fingers toying with the crinkly paper bag of baked goods but not taking any just yet, Lotor mouths the name, _“Dion?”_

“She means the blooming one,” Shiro says with a sigh. “The beautiful, beardless goat-killer. The torch-bearer, the liberator, he who frees mortals from our overwhelming cares and anxieties, not to mention all of our frustratingly bougie inhibitions. The raging madman, the giver of incense, the flesh-eater. The androgynously wine-dark with his massively phallic, luxuriant cock. Him of good spirit and the unripened grape. Son of Semele, husband of Ariadne, enemy of his blaspheming shit-bag uncle and cousins. The twice-born ivy-bearer, also known as Zagreus, Lyaeus, Bromios, Eleuthereus, and Kôlôtês, among all kinds of other titles, names, and epithets. The god who comes and _comes_ , if you know what I mean.”

Although Lotor’s confusion seems to abate, his quizzically arched eyebrow inspires Shiro to explain, “Dionysus. She’s talking about—Adam and I tangled with him a couple years back. Have you ever wondered what _The Bakkhai_ would look like if it played out among some obnoxiously moneyed, sniggeringly atheistic white kids on an East Coast liberal arts college campus?”

“Can’t say that I have, but…” Lotor winces. “It sounds like an ordeal.”

“He was so sweet to Kashi, though. To Adam as well—and to me, when I got to meet him last year—but Kashi dealt more with Dion himself, during that first hunt.”

“He _would_ have been sweeter to Adam,” Shiro points out, “if Doctor Bloom hadn’t totally derailed the plan, and had stuck with the idea of _Adam_ posing as his teaching assistant while we did our work. If things had gone the way we’d intended, Adam would’ve been the one making out with Dion and trying to get victims to the ER before they died by misadventure.”

Mom shakes her head and sighs. “Doctor Bloom is a colleague of Hikaru’s late mother,” she tells Lotor. “Adam and Kashi worked the hunt as a favor to him. He developed a fondness for Kashi before even learning who he was—”

“In fairness, Takashi does have a way of winning people over—”

“Very true. His father says he gets it from me, but I say that he gets it from Hikaru—”

“All I did was chat about my _Vampire Nymphomaniacs_ books with a stranger in a café. Why he picked me to be his fake assistant instead of the _obvious_ choice is beyond me.” Shiro wilts onto his elbows. Before Mom can call him out or Lotor can decide to pull the thread, Shiro drawls, “So, what are we looking for, this time? All we have to go on is the thing’s name—if it’s even true.”

Lotor wrinkles his nose in the way that always makes him look like a disgruntled kitten, even on a new face. “You suspect that your rescuer was lying to you about their name?”

“I’m just saying: we shouldn’t rule it out as a possibility.”

“We could start with what you remember,” Mom drawls, rubbing at one of her eyes. “Considering _you’re_ the only one out of our group who has actually dealt with this _Leliel_ character. The rest of us are throwing guesses into the aether and hoping one of them takes us somewhere productive. So, anything that you recollect, Kashi?”

“What I remember?” A chill slams into Shiro’s chest. His shoulders tense like they’ve been hit with an electric shock. “I mean, I remember being a Hellhound’s chew-toy—nice trick that you and Uncle Mitch pulled with the sprinkler system, by the way? Blessing the nice, suburban well so the demons can’t get past the wall of holy water? Absolutely genius.” But that’s not the point right now, and Mom shoots him a look like she knows that he knows that he’s stalling. “What do you want me to say? Lilith turned up in Lotor’s old host body. Sicced a Hellhound on me. There was pain, and blood, and screaming—out of me, Adam, _and_ Yuki—then, lights out. Do not pass _Go_ , do not collect two-hundred dollars, go _directly_ to Hell, and as they say on Tralfamadore: so. it. fucking. _goes_.”

Huffing as though this settles the matter, Shiro concludes, “Then, I woke up, six feet under.”

This statement _should_ settle things. Shiro should have free reign to attempt _calling_ Yuki, seeing if his oldest non-Adam friend (with periodic benefits) will believe that it’s really Shiro calling and if maybe Yuki will swing down to Columbus to get in on this hunt. Fuck, Shiro _should_ be off the hook and allowed to go meet Yuki himself because what Shiro can remember from Hell should _not_ need discussing.

Both Mom and Lotor watch Shiro closely, though, as if preparing to dismantle everything he’s just said. Shiro can’t look back at them for long. Sighing, he focuses on the table, on an empty straw wrapper and how many knots he can tie it in. Maybe Mom and Lotor have tired of his stubbornness, because they stay quiet until one of the baristas calls out their order number. It doesn’t take Lotor long to fetch it—long enough for Shiro to start fiddling with a napkin instead, but in his defense (not that anyone’s _asked_ him to defend himself for the past hour or so), there’s only so much he can do with a straw wrapper.

Significantly better than Shiro’s oversized cup of coffee, though, are the battered five-subject spiral-bound notebook and black velour drawstring bag that Lotor takes out of his messenger bag. Without a word, he passes them and a pen across the table. Shiro’s breath snags in his throat, if only for a moment; he hasn’t used his deck of tarot cards in far too long, but seeing the carrying bag again makes his heart flutter delightedly.

When Shiro blinks across the table, fumbling over how to express his gratitude, Lotor shrugs.

“Adam planned to save them without my intervention,” he says. “You will also find your old tarot journal in his backpack. However, I thought that your cards were best kept by someone who appreciates them—never mind the fact that I know how to _interpret_ them and Adam does not.” He sips his latte, and he’d blend into this café’s crowd seamlessly, if not for Shiro hanging around. “A deck as exquisite and beloved as yours deserves better than rotting, unused, in Ariel’s glove-box.”

“Thanks for that, Princess.”

“None necessary. If Adam had considered throwing them away, I would have immediately checked him for signs of possession.” A shiver, then Lotor adds, “Starting with looking more closely, to see if I spotted one of my brethren’s faces, lurking behind Adam’s.”

“Which would have been _work_ for you, which I would have also appreciated—”

“Important work, though. Your anti-possession protective tattoos will do the job against _most_ of my kind, however…” Taking a sip of his coffee, Lotor holds up a hand to keep Shiro quiet. Just as well—he should focus on shuffling his deck. He only splits his attention again when Lotor says, “Lilith is no ordinary foe, and she has some of Hell’s worst denizens in her employ. We should prepare ourselves for anything, if we mean to face her and put a stop to whatever plans she has. She is more than willing to deviate from her standard playbook. Before she ripped me from my previous host, I never thought that she would possess a _male_ body, but…”

Lotor trails off into a sigh. Silence would invade the table outright, if not for the _swish-swish_ of Shiro’s cards moving against each other and the _click-clack-click_ of Mom’s typing.

Fair enough on Lotor’s part, though. It was bad enough for Shiro, glancing at the tall, blond visage he’d come to know as Lotor’s, seeing the jagged, skeletal face of a demon—and then noticing that the horns were wrong. Unlike Lotor’s twisted up stems, these horns curved like elegant blades, with thorns woven around them from top to bottom. His heart skipped too many beats at the sight of her even before she flashed her true eyes, pearlescent white instead of Lotor’s abyssal black.

Yet, as horrified as Shiro was, hearing Lilith use Lotor’s voice to announce how much she liked his host’s body— _“It’s all grown up and pretty”_ —Lotor must have had it infinitely worse. He didn’t simply watch on as this covert switch happened; he had to feel Lilith rending control away from him, and then endure her wrath, up close and personal.

Maybe Shiro _should_ call Yuki, now that he thinks about it, about supernatural creatures with overly inflated opinions of themselves overriding his friends’ agencies. He was there eleven years ago, for the one hunt, when Shiro first met Keith Kogane of New Marmora, Ohio, one of the small towns that sit in the shadow of Ohio University, down in Athens. Yuki worked that job with Shiro and tried to keep him from capitulating, going back to Jacob with a litany of apologies when Shiro’s only “crime” had been standing up for himself. Of the people in Shiro’s life who care about him, Yuki was the first to actually _meet_ Keith, for all he tried to keep Keith from helping on the hunt. Fair enough, Keith turned twelve on the exact day that they rolled into town, but he wound up being an invaluable help during that mess.

God, going after one of the people who Shiro’s _saved_ —that, on Leliel’s part, is _fucking low_.

“Question about Lilith, if you feel up to answering, Ballerina Barbie?” Maybe Shiro could stand to be less blunt about this. Perhaps he could’ve waited until _after_ laying his three-card spread—but either way, Lotor nods his permission, so Shiro asks, “The title you used at the diner, ‘Lucifer’s First’? The myth around that is completely made up, right?”

Pursing his lips, Lotor shoots Shiro a _Pointed Glance_ that wants to wither him and make him question several of his current life-choices. Unfortunately for Lotor, he can’t summon the energy to go all the way with this disapproval.

If he needs time to think, that’s fine. At least Shiro has something to do with his hands.

As if the universe wants to spite him for any of the sins he’s committed recently, flipping over the first card—the one in his “Past” position—shows Shiro a face that he’s still sick of seeing. Seething silently, he frowns at the colorful drawing of a lightning-struck tower, wreathed in flames with human figures plummeting to their deaths in the chasamous maw that’s opened in the ground.

“Jesus,” he hisses. “Didn’t I see enough of this _ben zonna_ **_before_** I went to Hell? Like, okay, already, I get it. Grief, ruination, massive life upheavals, despair, confusion, destruction, things fall apart, the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is blah blah blah, Perdition catch my soul, chaos is come again—change the fucking _record_ , right?”

“All of which makes sense to see in the card reflecting your _past_ , Kashi.” Without looking up from the laptop, Mom clarifies, “Considering where your soul has traveled recently, I would expect to see some of the darker cards in your reading. You cannot fault your deck for its honesty.”

“Yeah, I guess not—but _still_. I didn’t lay a spread for months before I died, all because I got sick of seeing The Fucking Tower and the Nine of Swords. Doesn’t help that the guy in the Nine looks just like me, either.” Flipping over the second card reveals the Wheel of Fortune, reversed, and Shiro sighs. “Great, because I really needed to see that. If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all, right?”

Lotor supposes not, but more importantly—“How did you mean ‘completely made up’ in this context, darling?”

“I don’t think my meaning was particularly subtle.”

“No, but how do Lilith and her specific set of problems shape what you have in mind?”

Shiro flips the third card, but doesn’t look at it yet. Meeting Lotor’s gaze, he says, “I mean, unless Lucifer is actually some kind of big, bad-ass, boss-fight super-demon like Lily Pad and Zazzy Stardust—”

“He is not. According to the lore shared in the Pit, Lucifer is one of the four Archangels, hand-crafted from Grace and pure quintessence by Adam’s Adonai.” Huffing, Lotor flips his long, pale cowlick off his new body’s face. “Of course, outside of Lilith’s devotees like Honerva and loyal fanatics like Belial—the demon whom you and Adam refer to as _Allura_ —most of my brethren no longer believe that our father _exists_ in any meaningful fashion—”

“Yeah, that's what I thought. Him not existing, that is. Sure, human lore has holes sometimes, and it can be fallible? But it’d be pretty strange for literally all of our stories who mention him by name to get the ‘fallen angel’ thing wrong.” Both Mom and Lotor give Shiro flat, glassy-eyed expression—weird. Usually, he only gets the Supremely Unimpressed Face out of people when he’s come up with three different ideas for how to catch a monster, and all of them involve using himself as bait.

Trying not to let his mother and best friend rattle him, Shiro shrugs. “I am just saying: if angels don’t exist, then that means Lucifer can’t exist either—”

“Unless you’re _wrong_ , Kashi,” Mom points out. “Unless angels _do_ exist, as the current evidence strongly suggests they do.”

Looking to Lotor, Shiro expects an argument. Instead, he gets to watch Lotor drag his hands down his face and groan like he needs a nap or twenty. “In fairness to a point that you _could_ make, were you currently operating in good faith? It _is_ true that, in human lore, ‘fallen angel’ is not mutually exclusive with ‘demon.’ Actually, some grimoires and treatises on demonology use the terms more or less interchangeably, even misapplying ‘fallen angel’ to demons who don’t deserve it.”

“Meaning most demons, I take it?” Rifling through Adam’s backpack, Shiro does, indeed, find the five-subject, spiral-bound notebook that has served as his tarot journal since shortly before Shiro took Adam on that hunt to Jericho, California, trying to save Dad from whatever trouble Jacob had gotten them into.

“Most demons believe that all of us were entirely human, prior to our transformations.” Nodding briefly, Lotor rests his cheek in his palm. Something about the way he drums his brown, spindly, spider-leg fingers on the table suggests that he’s calling on every ounce of patience he possesses in order to see this conversation through. “As for the confusion between the term ‘demon’ and the term ‘fallen angel,’ some of it comes down to translation problems, instances where words get conflated and therefore lose or gain certain nuances of meaning that may not reflect their original uses, and the perpetual struggle of transcribing oral histories, but…” He sighs, arching both brows at Shiro. “Matters such as these are complicated, even when all participants involved _want_ to hear evidence that contradicts what they have already decided to believe.”

While Lotor massages his temple, Shiro finally examines his third card, the one reflecting his future. In a normal, Rider-Waite deck—indeed, in most decks designed by and primarily for straight people—he would see a drawing of the Biblical Adam and Eve. Innocently nude and brightly colored, they would stand in the Garden of Eden, or possibly embrace. Shiro, however, bought his deck from an independent artist in San Francisco’s Castro district during one of the adventures where he and his Adam ran away while Jacob West was on a hunt. Shiro needed a fake ID to buy the deck, being only sixteen at the time, but it was advertised as a specifically queer men’s tarot.

Fittingly, Shiro’s version of The Lovers card depicts two men. Buck-ass naked like so many other Lovers, they entangle themselves in each other as if separating might literally kill them. The card would reassure Shiro more if it weren’t upside-down, but as the old song suggests, maybe Shiro really _was_ born under a bad sign.

He’s jotting notes down when Lotor gives a low whistle. “Oooh, darling. Are you planning to let Liam know that you’re back among the living, then? Or perhaps your Paris?”

“Did anybody even let them know I _died_?” Judging from how neither Mom nor Lotor can look him in the eye, Shiro would guess not. “Anyway, it’s better if I don’t. Liam has to raise his little brother alone. Paris has his career—he got a _book deal_ , last I heard. They don’t need my garbage invading their lives again, and in case you haven’t noticed?” For emphasis, Shiro taps the card. “They’re reversed.”

“I have never, in over seven-hundred years of sapience and some manner of life, known The Lovers—even when inverted—to cast ill omens—”

“Strained relationships. Imbalance. Conflict. Trouble with communication—”

“It indicates that those can be _problems_ , yes, but not that they _define_ the situation—”

“I drew it for Adam all the time after Jeff died,” Shiro points out. “Granted, it mostly came up with reference to _me_ in any of the readings that Adam let me do for him, but… That was a weird time for us. Not _bad_ , exactly, but we _did_ need to get reacquainted with each other. Plus, there was all the lingering sexual tension, and me feeling like, ‘Does he even _want_ me anymore? Is it too soon after Jeff for me to ask? If I don’t like whatever answer he gives me, how’s that going to affect things between us, now that we’re back together after so many years apart’—”

“At the risk of telling you something that you already know? Perhaps, your deck means to indicate that a similar period may lie ahead.” _Hmm_ -ing, idly tapping his cheek, Lotor lets an _odd_ look slip onto his face—too pensive for him to claim that he simply spaced out, but not thinking on anything that makes itself readily apparent. Under the table, something vibrates and another something softly thumps against the floor. It sounds like nothing Shiro can identify offhand, and when he looks, he sees Lotor’s leg bouncing without apparent need for rest.

Strange—but before Shiro can think too much about it, Lotor clears his throat. “Perhaps this _Leliel_ —angel or not—could drive a wedge between you and Adam? Or other external influences could accomplish the same end? Or Leliel could come between you and someone else for whom you care…”

 _You have no idea how right you are, Ballerina Princess Barbie,_ Shiro wants to say, but doesn’t. After all, that statement could undermine his claim that he doesn’t remember anything useful. Then, Mom and Lotor could start poking. They could ask about Hell. Before too long on that road, they’d realize that Leliel should’ve left Shiro back in the Pit—unless they’re lying about raising him from Perdition and someone else did that deed.

They seemed pretty earnest about it, though.

Somewhere in the distance, Shiro makes out a sound like wailing. His head perks up. His eyes dart around the café, searching for the source of the noise. His grip tightens around his pen. When he finds nothing, his knuckles go white. Trembling, they threaten to cut clean through his skin. Something as prolonged as that sound—something that keens like it did—he can’t have fallen back into Hell, right?

Not unless he never left.

Not unless the rescue was a lie, one of Sendak’s elaborate fabrications—

“ _‘Bout twenty years ago, way down in New Orleans_ ,” someone sings in a rich, throaty voice. “ _A group of fellas found a new type of music…_ ”

Finally, Shiro locates where the noise is coming from, and he sighs in relief. Over on the other side of the café, a trio of college-aged kids huddle around a laptop. Two of them watch the screen, while the third leans back against the table. Lost in their own little world—one where the other patrons clearly don’t exist—the third sings along with whatever they’re watching. Now that the song’s picking up, Shiro even recognizes it: “Le Jazz Hot,” originally from _Victor/Victoria_. This doesn’t sound like the Julie Andrews version that Aunt Satomi loves so much, but whoever’s singing, they’ve got talent.

…The college kid with the floppy knit beanie could do with voice lessons, but Shiro guesses that it might not be their fault. Anybody would have a rough time, trying to hold a candle to Dame Julie.

“Your deck could mean to say that your perspective is changing, or that it _might_ change in the future.” As Shiro brings his focus back to his own table and his cards, Lotor allows himself to slouch. Resting on his elbows doesn’t bring him terribly closer to the spread, but he must get something out of this shift in his position. He mutters under his breath like he’s deep in thought, at least, which generally means that Lotor’s on to something. “Upright, The Lovers card speaks to peace, unity, the nurturance of significant emotional connections— _and_ in its own way, a certain sort of stasis. You already feel at peace with your situation and, more importantly, with your relationships—”

“So you don’t necessarily feel motivated to keep growing and moving forward—”

“Precisely, darling—”

“I dunno if that’s really an issue for me. Even if it were, my life doesn’t lend itself to going static.”

“Of course not, but consider: if the meaning of an inverted card twists the messages of the card when upright…” Fingertip maybe half-an-inch away from the card, Lotor traces a spiral in the air. “Perhaps, your deck is telling you that future events may force you to change your perspective, reconceive of your relationships and how they balance, find new ideas or explanations, reevaluate truths that you have taken for granted—”

“Such as the existence or not of angels,” Mom chimes in, shooting Shiro her painfully familiar expression that, while neither mad nor exactly disappointed, insists on how she _knows_ he’s better than how he’s acting.

“Or maybe…” Shiro looks her in the eye. “Maybe, it’s a sign of needing to relearn where I fit into the fabric of everyone’s lives, now that Adam and Lotor are in _love_ with each other.”

“I—erm. Whatever are—I don’t know what you— _these implications, darling!_ ” Lotor’s cheeks flush crimson and his mouth scrunches up like he’s just sucked on a particularly kicky lemon. He raps on the table. “You could also look to the joint meanings. You know, what the cards can say when they work together. We have rather ignored this possibility.”

“That approach might undermine your, ‘I’ve never known The Lovers to be a bad thing’ blah blah blah, though, all thanks to this little bastard.” Shiro gestures at The Tower with his pen. “Past position or not, he casts a long shadow.”

“True, but he is also the only upright card, which suggests that he might not be as tied to The Lovers and The Wheel of Fortune, at present.” Muttering indistinctly, Lotor tilts his head. “Working together, and taking into account their inversion, I would guess… Looming crisis—”

“Oh, wow, something new and different for us—”

“—but you will not be alone during such difficult times—”

“Well, I should surely _hope_ not—”

“—though you _might_ need to reconsider some of your preconceived ideas about how the situations in your life work, how you want to relate to the people around you, and how best to request _help_ when you require it. Also, you may need to pick your battles, lest you overtax yourself _and_ those of us around you.” With a soft huff, Lotor fixes Shiro with a flat expression. “At the risk of frustrating both you _and_ Noshiko: yes, this _could_ refer to angels. However, I feel that narrow a reading risks eliminating certain nuances, and…”

Gently, he kicks Shiro in the shin. “I maintain that The Lovers, even when inverted, does not ultimately herald anything _too_ negative. Difficult, certainly, but this card invites us to take stock of ourselves and grow. It’s a _good_ sign.”

“Fair enough, but you _know_ me, Pretty Boy.” Tugging on his floofy forelock, Shiro explains, “My alleged luck is somewhere down in Hell’s sub-basement. It was even _before_ Adam and I broke all of those Bloody Mary mirrors. I _repel_ good omens—”

“Is there not a first time for everything?” As though this helps him make his point, Lotor kicks Shiro a second time.

Shiro frowns. “Me coming back from Hell isn’t on the same playing field as the idea of either Liam Braeden _or_ Paris Robinson getting anything good from letting me back into his life. Not even if Ben likes me and Cassie forgave me when monsters turned out to be real.”

“Not with _that_ attitude, I’d wager—”

“ _Anyway_.” Shiro sweeps his spread up, then starts shuffling again. He and his deck have a lot of lost time to make up for. “So, you were saying about Lilith and Lucifer and how angels are the Disney princess movie bullshit of our world.”

Here, Lotor should point out how Shiro’s distorting his argument. On any normal day, he would’ve argued that point.

Today, he sighs simply. “According to the popular legends among my brethren: after Adam’s Adonai created humans and decided that he loved them best, Lucifer threw a tantrum over this alleged parental favoritism. Worse than that, he construed his entire little war as a rebellion against an unjust creator—yet, even following his expulsion from Heaven, Lucifer was allowed to remain on Earth. He was not cast into Hell until after he corrupted Lilith, making a monster out of her in the name of making her stronger, which many demons—Allura-originally-known-as-Belial chief among them—will tell you was his act of liberating Lilith and, by extension, them—”

“Yeah, this all sounds a lot like what you said at the diner. Can we skip to the part where it’s all made up?”

“In lieu of a tactful way to say this, darling: you’re wrong.” Kneading two fingers at his temple, Lotor sounds as if he’s struggling not to sigh again—but also like this conversation requires more patience than he planned on giving it. “Most demons don’t care to question several obvious anomalies sitting right in front of them—even _less_ so ever since Perdition claimed that buffoonishly absurd radio host with the phobia of gay frogs and replaced him with a demon. Mind you, he unequivocally _deserves_ to be in Hell, and Pytho may actually be doing _less_ evil in his former terrestrial position, but…”

Groaning, Lotor shakes his head. “Branca Doria’s condemnation before death was _one_ thing, but Alex Emerick Jones is another matter entirely. I don’t think that Hell adequately prepared for him or the awful effects that he can have on other sentient beings and our attempts at reasonable discourse. Worse, he’s made my brethren even less willing to question the evidence that sits before them, never mind assembling the shreds into a coherent picture, because no one wants to seem like a _conspiracy theorist_ in anything resembling his particular idiom.”

Laying out another three-card spread, Shiro needles, “But there _is_ something that they could question?”

“Oh, absolutely. The Infernal authorities have holes in their official narratives, same as anyone else in a comparable position. Azazel, for example…”

Lotor trails off as Shiro flips the first card, the one relating to his body. Although both of them have seen the art before, no one could fault them for pausing over it (at least, Shiro hopes not). In the illustration, James Baldwin stands against a cotton candy pink sky, wearing a long, black robe and a crown of holly with its emerald leaves. Behind him, vivid, bottle green trees leads toward the far-off background of deep purple mountains, and a black infinity symbol hovers above his head, near the stark, bold numeral _VIII_. Uncontent to do nothing, Baldwin calmly bends toward a white lion with gleaming lavender eyes, cupping his hands around the beast’s maw.

The elegant script beneath them reads, _“Strength.”_

“Patience. Tension. Self-empowerment. Courage,” Lotor recites, drumming his fingers along the apple of his cheek. “Determination. Knowing you can endure the obstacles that life throws at you. In this position, I might suggest that you exercised self-control—perhaps to sheer superhuman extents—and mastered your circumstances, thereby leading to your miraculous—”

“It’s for my body. Material, lived experiences and the way they affect me, right?” Why that statement makes Mom purse her lips at him, Shiro can’t guess. Something about her face makes his face and neck flush hot, so maybe he’s owed an explanation? But part of him hopes that she never gives him one. Batting his foot at Lotor’s shin, he says, “So, body-mind-spirit. What d’you think? Did this _Leliel_ thing bring me back stronger, maybe?”

“I think that you have rather wandered from my intended meaning, but…” Lotor shrugs. “If you like, that reading _could_ have merit. I’m not entirely certain why you think your deck couldn’t have two meanings in mind, but you _are_ only on the first card.”

Fair point, Shiro guesses—but when he flips over the second card, he wishes that he hadn’t listened. A bright pink triangle sits at the center of a black background, with a scarlet heart overlaid. Identifying which of the Minor Arcana he’s drawn, three bleeding swords stick out from the heart at all angles.

“Well, that’s fucking delightful,” Shiro mutters.

“But not necessarily damning—”

“I should _hope_ not, considering where I just got back from—”

“You _know_ that I meant the turn of phrase metaphorically, darling—”

“True—but I also know that the Swords are the suit of pain, suffering, tragedy, and all that fun stuff. Maybe some of them aren’t as bad as their godawful Nine, but they still aren’t _great_ to see, most of the time.”

“A fair reading, and hardly inaccurate,” Lotor supposes, tapping one finger on Shiro’s cards. “If these two switched their places—or if Strength had been the _third_ card—then I might have an easy interpretation at the ready. Strength and the Three of Swords often work together, for better or for worse. On one hand, Strength can mollify the Three, while on the other, our Swords can challenge Strength—”

“Barbie, if you tell me that I’m gonna suffer but I’m gonna be happy about it like this is some _Harry Potter_ Divination class bull—”

“Oh, I would never. I’m a witch, Takashi, not a _hack_.”

“Hey, you don’t need to be a witch to tell me things like that. The Catholic Church sure loves to say—”

“See, even though you meant this as body-mind-spirit reading? Decks having wills of their own means that we cannot entirely ignore the possibility of past-present-future reading. In that light, Strength being in either the present or the future position would indicate, to me, that a querent has entered a period of recovery, or that they _will_ do so in the future.” Sighing pensively, Lotor frowns at the cards.

“Maybe we’re looking at a situation where my body’s all better—fixed up, healed, good as new, got my soul back in it and everything—but my mind is…”

 _In tatters_ , Shiro almost says. He only stops himself when he glances at Mom. She catches his gaze, locks onto him with her own, and her tight, gloomy expression dares him to say… something that she doesn’t want to hear, apparently. No clue what, aside from the general guesses that Shiro could make based on a lifetime of experiencing Mom’s patterns, but—“Are we maybe looking at a situation where, I don’t know, physical wellness distracts from emotional trauma?”

Whether Shiro’s said what Mom didn’t want him to or not, she rolls her eyes, muttering under her breath. Most of what comes out is Japanese, but Mom unconsciously mixes in enough traces of other languages that Shiro doesn’t feel like picking it all apart. He _could_ , but Mom might not want him to decipher her meaning, so Shiro looks back to Lotor.

“Considering the place from whence you have returned to us? I would think that likely. Very plausible.” Lotor wilts, sags like he has ten-ton weights on his shoulders. “It could also be the case that some of your trauma—” He taps the Three of Swords, “comes from the fact that you managed to outlast certain horrors and, using your inner strength—which is, I will remind you, quite considerable—you maintained composure and learned how to master your circumstances.”

Resting his finger on Strength, Lotor pierces Shiro with a stare. He says nothing, but he doesn’t need to. He practically radiates (what might be) his intended meaning: _I know what you endured in Hell, remember? I’ve been through it, too. More than anyone else in your life, I_ ** _know_** _what it’s like in the Pit, how they strip you bare and lay all your trauma out like a twelve-course banquet, how they try to burn away your humanity—_

 _Oh, what a beautiful reward you are, sweet boy. I have found such incomparable pleasure in this task that Lilith assigned to me_ —Shiro flinches as his mind replays the memory of this voice; recalling Sendak’s arctic chuckle, he bites down on a shudder; this isn’t real, he’s back on Earth, as safe as possible, relatively speaking, and Sendak isn’t here, he can’t be, that’s not happening— _Breaking and rebuilding you, Takashi, will be my_ ** _masterpiece_** _._

Shiro fumbles at the table. Tries remembering how to breathe. Easier said than done—but he gets himself together by the time he flips the third card over.

It comes up reversed, but Shiro still relaxes, seeing this illustration of a pale, naked young man sitting on a boulder beneath the full moon. Beside a forking river, he lets his legs fall so that one foot rests on the bank while the other dips into the stream. A pair of large, gray wolves accompany him, baying at the sky with their heads thrown back. Off in the distance, two white towers loom while a silver scorpion scuttles along the riverbank. Even upside-down, though, the young man’s face draws Shiro in more than any other aspect of the artwork: slim and fine-featured, haloed by a messy tumble of black hair, with those big, arresting, violet eyes.

 _Like Keith’s eyes_ , Shiro muses silently. Before he can stop himself, he jots that thought down with his other notes on this reading.

“Considering its placement,” Lotor says, “The Moon might be quite positive for you, right now. Of course, he still points toward confusion, illusions, unseen enemies, self-deception, anxiety, emotional volatility—his dreams transforming into nightmares, one might say, or a loss of control over one’s imagination. However, he also tells you that, if this period _hasn’t_ ended, then it will do soon. Plus, he provides advice on how to address such troubles.”

“Trust my instincts.” Shiro strokes the card, right down the young man’s torso. “Reconnect with my true self. Question my own basic assumptions and embrace the unknown. My sense of established order’s fallen out of joint, and maybe I need to embrace the chaos for a while—or let it simply exist instead of immediately trying to set it right.”

“Precisely.” As Shiro takes a few more notes, Lotor adds, “For instance, what I was saying about Azazel. Do you know that his name translates into English as ‘strength of God’?”

“Uh, did he have a different name before anybody called him Azazel, maybe?” Good thing Shiro’s hands retain their muscle memory of how to shuffle his deck, because aside from making a silent mantra from the intended significance of this three-card spread— _harmer, helper, healer_ —Shiro’s working on autopilot, trying to give Lotor the lion’s share of his attention. “Because that translation sounds like an ironic nickname. Or maybe like Goldeneye trying to spite whatever he thought of as _God_.”

“Azazel saw Lucifer as his true God, but that’s not the point. Also, while the pettiness in your theory would certainly have fit Azazel, no. Other than correct.”

“Was he some pagan entity who got assimilated into the Abrahamic contingent, whether he wanted to or not?”

“Certainly not _impossible_ , but no one has ever suggested it to me. Not about Azazel.”

“But that’s what happened with Beelzebub, right?”

“It might have been, but on that count, I haven’t the foggiest.” Letting his lips curl up in a sneer, Lotor makes a sound like someone gagging in a trashcan. “If Belial-Allura and I were still remotely on speaking terms, I could ask her—”

“ _What_ , like she would even _know_?”

“She knows more than you realize, darling. Unlike most antediluvian entities, her memory remains as sharp and clear as a diamond.”

“But Allura… She was, like… I mean, she wasn’t…” Shiro trails off, realizing the obvious flaw in his logic: much like he and Adam still call that demon _Allura_ , the name of the host she was using when they met her, Shiro may have assumed she couldn’t have been _that_ old, simply because Allura Masters, the human being, was around his and Adam’s age. Even so, Shiro can pick on one thing: “Okay, but asking me to accept that she’s antediluvian also asks me to accept that there was ever a Great Flood—”

“Oh, _stop it_ , Kashi.” Although Mom doesn’t look up from the laptop, she sure slams the enter key in a way that sounds both mad _and_ disappointed. “You’ve read your Obaasan’s monograph on global flood mythology and the evidence that hunters and scholars have assembled about it through the centuries. Stop pretending that you haven’t.”

Briefly, Shiro considers quipping back, _I didn’t_ ** _read_** _a damn thing; I was looking at her diagrams and pretty pictures._ Next, he considers asking what all he fucked up, this time.

Mom’s patience might not last through him doing either of those things, though—so, he nods. “‘m sorry. That… uncalled for. Even if I hate accepting a Biblical story as _true_.”

“The Tanakh’s rendition of the tale is only one account of what happened,” Lotor says with a shrug. “Never mind that it started as the testimony of a wild drunk, and his descendants passed it down through the ages, tailoring and amending the story to make Noah more palatable. Either way, I still cannot _access_ Allura’s clear memories of how Beelzebub joined the Infernal aristocracy without considerable risk of her emulating Salomé and putting my beautiful head on a silver platter.”

“Not to point out the obvious, but…” Finally satisfied, Shiro cuts his deck and lays his next cards. “Couldn’t you ask the demon himself? He… doesn’t completely _hate_ you, right?”

“Beelzebub spends too much of his time wasted on magical intoxicants to truly hate anyone, it’s true. That way, he remains pointedly neutral during any dust-ups over power struggles and internal hierarchies. No one has any _reason_ to kill him because he stays out of all their business, and so, the Lord of the Flies persists into the present day.”

“Right, so… You could go ask _him_ how he came to be a demon? Which was my point?”

“Frankly, I doubt he even _remembers_. He may not be burning out his brain in the same way that an independently corporeal being would, using as he does—but his drugs of choice work on him through rotting his _soul_. The sort of punishment that one should never wish on another sentient being, and he inflicts it on himself daily as an allegedly preferable alternative to cognizance.” Lotor shudders, then pauses for a long sip of his coffee. “About Azazel, however, the stories are the same, namely: he was an angel before becoming a demon, a member of Lucifer’s original garrison—or _Heylel’s_ garrison, to use his _true_ angelic name—and the Morningstar’s most trusted lieutenant during their rebellion against God.”

“ _Really_? I thought that was Bubba’s job—or that’s what Milton says in _Paradise Lost_ —”

“Milton also says that Hell has a grand cathedral, which happens to resemble a Catholic church for reasons that most assuredly have _nothing_ to do with Milton’s own religious and sociopolitical beliefs.” Shiro has to smile, hearing the way Lotor’s voice oozes sarcasm. Fuck, he missed this so much, even the part where Lotor arches an eyebrow as if to ask whether or not Shiro realizes that he sounds exceptionally stupid. “If I may be so bold: citing _Paradise Lost_ as a source of lore seems like a strange position for a man who insists that angels cannot possibly exist.”

“Hey, screwing up about angels and God doesn’t mean that Milton got _everything_ wrong—”

“It is also a strange position,” Mom drawls, “for a man who insists that he never could have gotten into university on his own merits.”

Shiro groans; he can’t help himself. It’s hard enough, trying to bite down the chill that comes from how Mom looks at him. Jaw set and brow knotted up, she throws him a thunderstorm scowl. Her eyes steel over like she can’t feel the tears welling up. Her hands pause, all work with the keyboard forgotten. She inhales deeply, and watching her, Shiro can’t shake the feeling like rats gnawing on his nerves and scratching at the inside of his skull. If he doesn’t cut in, if he doesn’t find _something_ to say for himself about this, she might rip him apart—

“I _never_ lied to you about why I didn’t want to go—”

“You told me and your father you didn’t want to waste valuable time—”

“And I _didn’t_ , Mom—”

“Time that you could have _better spent_ out in the world, saving people, hunting—”

“That was _true_ —”

“Then why did you say what you… Earlier, at your brother’s motel, why did you—and why would a _spirit_ …”

Grumbling indecipherably, and in no fewer than five different languages from the sound of it, Mom rolls her eyes. Shiro swallows thickly, watching her eyes drift up to the ceiling, hearing her grab at whatever words come to mind in the hopes that one will be what she wants. Maybe he should find _some_ way to feel worse than he does right now. Sure, Mom has moments like this on her own—same as Dad, Shiro, Adam, Bennett, Uncle Mitch, Lotor, Pidge, and every other polyglot who Shiro’s ever met—but this time, it feels like Shiro pushed Mom into it.

He sighs softly, slumping in his seat. “I said what I did at the motel because it was the first thing that came to mind. The first thing that Adam would _know_ we never told anyone, which was _my_ fault, not his, because I swore him to secrecy, we—” Shiro tugs on his white forelock, cursing his failure to immediately find the words he wants. “Look, why am I the bad guy for not wanting you and Dad to hear that?”

“Simply one demon’s opinion,” Lotor chimes in, voice low and careful. “But I don’t think that Noshiko-mama’s objection is a matter of you being _the bad guy_ —”

“It isn’t; thank you, Lotor. Kashi, trying to call you anything like that right now? Feels like it would only exacerbate the situation—”

“We don’t _need_ to make this into a situation, though.” Shiro groans. “Mom, seriously. Why do we—why are we _even_ —there is no situation—”

“You already _created_ the situation. Ages ago, when you lied to me and your father. When you _kept_ lying to us, however many times over the years.” Tucking some stray, black hair behind her ear, Mom sits up ever so slightly straighter. “Whether it was true or not, everything that you said about wanting to hunt more than you wanted to go to classes and get a degree? You still left out at least one of the reasons _why_ —”

“Because I _knew_ you wouldn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hurt you unnecessarily—”

“I am _hurting._ ** _now_** _._ Kashi. Because my _son_ had so low an opinion of himself—”

“Not exactly _news_ —”

“—that he denied himself the _chance_ to experience college, to look for a life _outside_ of hunting—”

“Because I _like_ our work. I know about your family, Mom, but I _enjoy_ —”

“I am not _upset_ that you get fulfillment out of hunting,” she snaps, slapping her left hand on the table. Her ice-cold stare makes Shiro want to curl up and die—or at least to look anywhere _except_ at Mom—but the thought of showing her any disrespect right now makes his stomach lurch like he might be sick. Flattening her palm on the empty surface beside the laptop, Mom explains, “I am _upset_ because one of your reasons for staying in this life? Came out of the terrible things that you think about yourself—things that you share with people so rarely, even when we could _help_ you—”

“All the love, support, and pep-talks in the world couldn’t have helped me back then, okay? So, there wasn’t a point or purpose in telling you _anything_ I felt about my shot at getting in anywhere.” Blunt, yes, and Mom flinches as if some unseen hand has slapped her—but with a sigh, Shiro tells her, “Fact is, I only stayed in _high school_ because I owed it to you, and to Dad, and to Obaasan—”

“It was _your_ life, Kashi, _your_ education—we wanted you to be happy—”

“But you sacrificed _so much_ to get where you did. You went through so much—I mean, the racism and misogyny alone? From classmates and your profs alike? Never mind all the sexual harassment you and Hannah got in law school? And Obaasan…” Although he forces himself to keep looking at Mom, Shiro fiddles with his necklace, spinning his late grandmother’s wedding ring around the tip of his index finger. “She pushed her way into academia when nobody wanted _any_ woman there, much less a _Japanese_ woman, freshly immigrated from Osaka. Sure, the Shiroganes were established in California by then, but…”

He shrugs, shaking his head. “Mom, you and Obaasan worked so hard. You built up lives here that practically _no one_ wanted you to have, you advanced to places that no one wanted you to reach, _you_ had to fight your own family to chase what you wanted—and I _know_ that you didn’t do it _for_ me? But you wanted to use what you had to give me a better life.” Shiro’s hand falls still, and he hooks his digit around the band of Obaasan’s ring. “How would I _not_ have been spitting on that? If I’d come to you like, ‘Hey, I have a give ‘em Hell attitude. Why can’t I just give this high school thing a miss and get a GED instead?’”

Shiro’s eyes slip shut. He makes himself take a deep breath. Tries to steady his nerves. He’s come this far, so he needs to finish. Even if he can’t look at her, he needs to say, “A GED isn’t inherently shameful, but it’s sure _seen_ that way. People look down on you—general you—for it. And I had opportunities that you and Obaasan had to work for—they just got _handed_ to me, by virtue of being your son, _Dad’s_ son, and _Murasaki Chiba Shirogane’s_ grandson. Throwing those chances out? Spurning them when other people only _dreamed_ of having _half_ of what I did? Acting like they didn’t _mean_ anything, after everything you did to earn them? Everything the world put you through because you _wanted_ them?”

Swallowing thickly, Shiro drags his gaze back to her. “That’s what was at stake for me. I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d dropped out of high school—but I _wanted_ to, Mom.”

Tears finally make good on their implicit threats and spill onto her cheeks. “What else did you— _boku no yōji_ —what did you _not tell_ us—”

“Every time someone at one of those Hell-holes told me I was worthless?” Fuck, Shiro hasn’t been a high school student for eleven years; he shouldn’t feel this lump in his throat—hot and thick, doing its best to choke him—all because he’s trying to answer Mom’s question. “Every time some tight-laced lady teacher told me I was so horrible and selfish, holding a good boy like Adam back? Every time some grown, adult man with a wedding ring paid me to suck his cock and got a _rush_ out of knowing that he’d see me for math class in the morning, and that I couldn’t out him without everybody learning what I did at night so Adam and I could _eat_?”

Shiro’s white fringe wilts over his forehead. Trying to shake it off only makes it droop lower. “Every time, I felt like, ‘Why am I doing this. Why bother. I could call Yuki and fuck off on a hunt, and never come back to this’—but I kept sticking it out. Except I couldn’t do all that shit _again_ in college—and, I mean?”

Shiro huffs. “I hated trying to focus on classes. Every teacher I’d ever had told me I was stupid. They yelled at me for finding new ways to make any sense out of the shit they taught because I wasn’t coloring inside the lines, but then they patronized me for not understanding them when they taught things _badly_. Enough outside evidence seemed to agree with them that I was a complete idiot, so I figured it was a compromise: finish high school so I could look at myself in the mirror, but forget college and go back to something I was _actually_ good at.”

For several long moments, Mom says absolutely nothing. Taking deep, measured breaths, she can’t look Shiro in the eye.

Fuck, this was _exactly_ why he swore Adam to secrecy about that incident with May-Ellen Cooper’s ghost and the fucker who’d conjured her: telling Mom the truth, the whole truth, and every last terrible, horrible, no good, very bad, maggot-infested, belly-to-the-ground detail of the truth was only ever going to hurt her. Opening up to her about this was only ever going to break her heart, as if Shiro hasn’t done that enough in his life. For everything Jacob West ever lied about, he didn’t lead Shiro wrong about this—as proven here, by how much he’s upset Mom, now. Dammit, she’s probably wondering where she went so wrong with her Kashi, and if she failed as a parent—the epitome of unfairness when she’s the best mother anyone could’ve asked for—and it’s all Shiro’s stupid fault again, just like—

“ _Ben zonna_ ,” Mom hisses, shaking her head and turning back to the laptop. “When we hunt down the demon that Hell made out of Jacob West, _I’m_ going for him first. Your father and Adam can wait their turns.”

The events and feelings that Shiro just told her about weren’t _exclusively_ Jacob West’s fault—but Shiro nods for Mom anyway. Adam’s piece-of-shit father _did_ play a considerable role in the atrocious mess that Shiro got to call his adolescence. Maybe running him through with Lotor’s demon-killing knife will give Mom _something_ vaguely adjacent to peace about all of this. Too likely, Mom won’t feel terribly better for an extended period of time, but some temporary catharsis might help her.

Then again, considering what Mom did to Jason Murphy as retribution for what he did to her baby? Considering how they never talk about what happened when she led Jason up into White Park National Forest, hunting a malevolent okami, because she’s so at peace with it that she doesn’t even need her Kashi thanking her for stopping Jason? Maybe killing Jacob _will_ put Mom’s mind at ease for more than a day or two.

In the meantime, Shiro starts flipping his third set of cards. The first one makes him groan almost as loudly as he did for The Tower—and Lotor clicks his tongue in a mix of agreement and disgust.

“I _detest_ The Hierophant,” he sneers. “Triply so when he turns up inverted.”

“Yeah, talk about the _worst_. He’s all about people telling you who to be and which way to go, how to act, and why oh, no, no, no, noooo, no, no, no, you gotta stick to the status quo…” Shiro lets his halfhearted singing trail off in the face of Lotor’s puzzled expression.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand that reference, darling?”

“It… It’s from this silly tweeny-bopper movie; don’t worry about it.” Shiro traces a circle in the air above The Hierophant’s card as he picks up, “As I was saying: turning this little fucker upside-down makes everything he stands for so much worse. Mistrust, institutions of power and how they actively harm people, trapped by someone who’s using you to further their own goals, abuse coming from someone who doesn’t have your best interests at heart…”

“I was going to suggest a more _self_ -reflective interpretation, actually. Although he remains an abhorrent card, he could have pointed to you harming _yourself_ by clinging to ideas and beliefs that no longer serve you.” Lotor hums as if to say that they both know what issue he _could_ press right now—again with the fucking angels—but then, he prods at Shiro with, “You have someone else in mind, I take it?”

 _Yeah, just a bit,_ Shiro almost lets himself spit out. _He calls himself Picasso With A Razor._

Instead of saying so—God, he doesn’t want to learn if Speak Of the Devil rules apply to Sendak—Shiro nods and flips his second card. Normally, the picture on it would at least elicit a smile from him, but not today. A rainbow sprawls across a sunny sky—not a normal rainbow, either; this one has its eight stripes done in pink, red, orange, yellow, turquoise, blue, indigo, and violet, like Gilbert Baker’s original gay pride flag. Beneath the rainbow, tiny human figures celebrate its blessings, as well as those coming from the ten golden goblets lined up over the rainbow.

“Would’ve preferred to see it upright,” Shiro guesses, “but I’ll never argue with the Ten of Cups.”

“Smart man.” Nodding, Lotor peers at the card. “Even its most negative meanings still come with the hopeful message that these things must pass. Given its placement in the Helper’s position, I might guess that you have someone in your life who could very easily help you with several of your troubles, however disconnected from them you might feel, at present. I would even say that they are very close to you, with the sort of knowledge that makes them an ideal confidante—if only you would open up to them.”

As if he weren’t being clear enough about his intended meaning—that _he_ , himself, is the knowledgeable confidante in question—Lotor arches his brows and tilts his head towards Shiro.

Neither confirming nor denying anything, Shiro flips the third card, the one in his Healer position. Although it’s upright, Shiro has to choke back a sigh at the illustration. Normally, Shiro doesn’t mind seeing artwork of his favorite saint, Sebastian—patron of queer men, whether the Vatican acknowledges it or not—but things are different with this card. All the normal markers jump out, yes: waves of black hair cascading past Sebastian’s slender shoulders; a lithe body, the lines of his hips and muscles lovingly rendered; three golden arrows protruding from bloody chest wounds; the corona haloing his head—but then, there are the fluffy, white wings protruding from Sebastian’s back.

Standing on the bank of a river, pouring water from one silver goblet to another, Sebastian resembles this deck’s version of The Moon in two regards. First, he has one foot in the stream while the other remains on land. Second, his eyes, while no less beatific than any other depictions of him, pierce Shiro’s soul. The more he looks at them, the more he feels the sinking suspicion that he’s fucked something up without realizing what it is. That violet hue looks so much like Keith’s eyes, and Shiro’s stomach twists, sick with the idea that he’s done something irreparably terrible.

Beneath the illustration, this deck’s elegant script spells out, _“Temperance.”_

“I would so hate to be a literalist, much less to the exclusion of any other readings,” Lotor drawls with the air of someone who doesn’t regret what he’s thinking enough to keep it to himself. “However, I cannot help but wonder…” He taps one of Sebastian’s wings, “if your deck might not have decided to weigh in on our debate about the existence of angels.”

“Just because I was healed by _something_ doesn’t mean it was an angel.” Shiro shuffles the deck again, more quickly this time. “Let’s ask them again, okay? Clarity reading: who is this Leliel character. What do they want. How can they help or hurt.”

Lotor nods in agreement, and when Shiro flips the first card, he smirks like a kitten who got the cream. “Temperance again, darling. At the risk of reminding you that I told you—”

“You know good and fucking well that Temperance doesn’t necessarily indicate angels. I’ve drawn it about _you_ before, so how could it.” Lotor coughs uncomfortably, but says nothing in response to that. As if he has the magic key to settling these matters, Shiro flips the next card—and he grimaces at the illustration of a blond man suspended upside-down from a tree. “ _Fuck_ The Hanged Man.”

“I know that you would,” Lotor deadpans, “but would that honestly be the best use of your time?”

“Probably not. We might get all hung up on who has to top.”

“True, I could easily see that happening—”

“I mean, unless the Hanged Man showed up to represent _Yuki_ —”

“Ah, yes. Dear Mr. Tsukiyama wouldn’t need to waste your time with debating positions. Such a sexual rapport—”

“Adam and I might get hung up on that question, depending on who feels what way, and whether Mercury’s in retrograde, and—”

“Suggesting your Sunshine and your best human friend as potential interpretations of The Hanged Man…” Lotor inhales deeply, like he’s considering the best possible way to tell Shiro that he’s being an idiot. “That interpretation _seems_ unlikely? Considering the card’s position—”

“Unless this Leliel character wants to _hurt_ two of the people I care about—”

“Darling, you are leveling that accusation at them for no _true_ reason—”

“Why would anyone _want_ The Hanged Man, though? Want what he represents, I mean. Even someone who’s calling themself an angel—or maybe it _especially_ doesn’t make sense because they’re claiming to be an angel.” Shiro grumbles and slouches onto his elbows. “Does Leliel themself want a new perspective or time to pause? Do they want _me_ to surrender? If they do, then whom am I supposed to be surrendering _to_ —them, or someone else?”

“Perhaps they feel trapped in the mundanity of their ordinary experiences and rescued you in the hopes that you might make them feel alive, give or take showing them new ways of doing things that could, based on your precedent, more accurately reflect who they are on the inside.” When this effectively curtails the interpretation-sharing, Lotor shrugs as if asking what Shiro wants from him. “You have a unique habit of doing things like that, Takashi. Consider: who among us has made Thanatos, the chthonic death god most renowned for his iron-hearted ruthlessness, collapse in riotous laughter?”

“Well, maybe if more people got curious about which mythological queers are tops and gossiped with Queen Persephone about it—”

“Who at this table has befriended a shinigami,” Mom chimes in, voice half-clinical, as if she can remove herself from the situation in any capacity. “Who here, in fact, won over the shinigami who had been sent to collect his soul through sheer refusal to give up? Who has charmed that shinigami so much that, had Jacob not Dealt with Azazel, Ulaz _would_ have allowed this person’s soul to return to his body?”

Shiro’s cheeks flush warm and his mouth twists up in knots. “You’re making it sound like I’m some kind of… life-changing Manic Pixie Dream Boy for incredibly powerful supernatural entities.”

“If the shoe fits, darling. Need I also cite how you subdued Asmodeus—”

“That _was_ smooth, on my part.” Shiro chuckles. “Rookie mistake on his, though. I mean, come on, he was possessing a cute little white boy twink with an unobjectionable face and a dime-a-dozen, ‘skinny but still looks okay in booty shorts’ kind of body—”

“Infernal gossip suggests that the Prince of Prurience, the Viscount of Carnal Vice, the Despot of Desire, the Aphrodisiac Marquis, and Hell’s Grand Regent of _Lust_ —”

“He should call himself the King of Unnecessarily Pretentious Titles—”

“That’s as may be, darling—but the scuttlebutt still suggests that he means to change your mind about—”

“Hey, he had me Downstairs for four whole months and I never saw him.” Dimly, Shiro realizes that he should probably pause over lying about this. He should probably get a shock of guilt, _especially_ so soon after Mom’s raked him across the emotional coals for lying to her by omission. Doing it deliberately, rather than by passive non-action, should make him regret _something_ , shouldn’t it? There’s probably so much wrong with him that he can shrug and, even remembering how many times Sendak ever invited Asmodeus, Shiro can huff at Mom and Lotor like there’s nothing wrong at all.

Maybe it means that Shiro’s broken, the way he can so easily tell them, “Anyway, if Him of the Pretentious, Sexy Titles has had his claws in me since I was _six_ —first time I wanted to kiss Adam ‘til we both passed out or whatever—then why’d Asmodeus think I would just bend over and crumble because he kissed me? Shouldn’t he know me _better_ than that?”

“Well, I can’t purport to speak for Asmodeus himself, but…” Lotor rolls his eyes. “Were I to make an educated guess? He might have gotten such ideas from the fact that his influence has seeped into your life since _childhood_. He has made you a passion project in ways that—”

“And look what that got him: a cold shower of holy water and a happy, shiny exorcism—”

“ _Regardless_ of anything with Asmodeus,” Lotor insists, “it _could_ be the case that Leliel feels trapped in their own routines and sees you as an escape.”

“But it could just as easily be what I was saying. About how _Leliel_ wants me to surrender control of my life, my mind, my _soul_ , my body, everything about me, like I haven’t done enough of—”

“Or perhaps they brought you back to us and simply want you to admit that _without_ any of your…” Mom grumbles, waving her hand in front of her face. If Shiro didn’t recognize the gesture too damn well, he might interpret it as dismissive. But it’s not that, nor is it a sign of exasperation when Mom lets her gaze drift up toward the ceiling, almost but not exactly rolling her eyes. Or anyway, she’s exasperated with something else, more than she is with Shiro: “I can’t find the word I want in _any_ language. That’s how difficult you’re being right now, _boku no kokoro_.”

“Yeah, well, I learned from the best, didn’t I? Being Tenō Noshiko’s son and all—”

“You are your _father’s_ son, too—”

“I know, right? Spitting image of him, physically, except that I work out and have your eyes—”

“ _My_ family did not teach you to swallow your own tongue and fall down staircases whenever a beautiful boy smiles at you—”

“Yeah, but can you _really_ say that I inherited _Dad’s_ taste in guys? I mean, first of all, his definition of ‘bisexual’ seems to mean, ‘attracted to exactly two individual people ever in his entire life, period’ and the _man_ out of you two…” Shiro trails off, catching a glimpse of Lotor’s disbelieving smirk. Which, as far as reactions to this nonsense go, is… undeniably fair. Shiro doesn’t _like_ that it’s undeniably fair, but—“Okay, I changed my mind. My _usual_ type may not be exactly the same as Dad’s taste in guys—”

“You _have_ a usual type?” Lotor deadpans, “Darling, I think I may die of shock.”

“Of course I have a usual type, Barbie. My usual type is _men_.” Shiro says it with a smile, and snorts when Lotor almost chokes on his bite of cookie. Looking to Mom, Shiro appends, “If we lived in a universe where Uncle Mitch was not my godfather and hadn’t helped to raise me and Adam? Then yeah, I would agree with Dad about him being a very sexy man. So, yes, you could argue that I inherited Dad’s taste in guys, even though you _shouldn’t_ because, like I said, the ‘bi’ in Dad’s ‘bisexual’ means ‘exactly two individual people ever.’”

This time, Mom does roll her eyes. “You could have stood to learn more from your father in _other_ ways as well, Kashi. His capacity for patience… His respect for his own boundaries… The way that he tries to gather as much information as he can before making up his mind about something, instead of deciding what’s going on based on whatever goes through his mind today and charging in like some rampaging _oni_ —”

“I’m _proud_ to take after you, though. So, that’s that.” Shiro flips the final card and finds The Moon again—upright, this time. “So, here’s hoping this means Leliel will actually help me? Preferably with the gift of a beautiful, naked guy who makes eyes like this at me?”

Lotor purses his lips and wrinkles his nose. “ _Really_ , darling?”

No, not really, no matter how much easier that might be. But since Shiro doesn’t want to talk about Keith right now—or about why The Moon is the Major Trump that corresponds to him more than any other, or about how the boy in this illustration _could_ pass for Keith more easily than Shiro wants to admit or consider for too long—Shiro needs to look for other options. Facetious nonsense, apparently, doesn’t work today. By way of a sign that Shiro _is_ taking this discussion seriously, he shakes his head and ducks his chin. He jots Keith’s name down in his journal, grateful that Lotor focuses on the card instead of trying to read Shiro’s chicken-scratch while, from his perspective, it’s upside-down.

Keith and Lotor only met each other once, during that hunt down in Elizabethville, around this time last year. Aside from how they barely spent fifteen minutes in each other’s presence before the gang split up, both of them focused more on Adam and getting to know him (or _trying_ to, in Lotor’s case). There’s too much history for Shiro to lay out for Lotor right this second, too much context to explain why The Moon is Keith’s card, in addition to the illustration being a dead-ringer for him.

“The Moon, at her worst and best alike, will speak to our inner lives—our spiritual lives, the lights and shadows of our souls, every longing and deeply buried desire that affects us despite any attempts we make at smothering it.” The way Lotor talks, sometimes, you’d almost think he was a poet, rather than a plain, simple demon who appreciates some good Drama as much as Shiro does. Perching his chin in his palm, Lotor clicks his tongue. “If this Leliel is meant to be your Healer figure—as the placements of the Temperance card in these past two spreads suggest—then perhaps they will concern themself primarily with the welfare of your spirit.”

“Sure. Right. Of course. They’ve already healed my body from getting ravaged by Lily-Dew’s pet Hellhound. Obviously, they’re sticking around to hold me while I cry and care ever so intensely about the state of my _gutter soul_.”

“I do so wish that you wouldn’t say such things about yourself, Takashi.”

“Hey, I’m only repeating what that Crossroads Demon said—”

“Yes, and if Adam had not shot him in the heart with that little pistol I’d refurbished?” Lotor arches both brows in a way that dares Shiro to interrupt at his own peril. “A close colleague of mine commands exclusive control over the Crossroads. Every crossroads in every corner of this planet falls under her jurisdiction—and she rules as the King of every demon who works those hotspots, from the master negotiators to the hacks who couldn’t sell water to someone dying of dehydration—”

“What, and your old friend—oh, sorry, _colleague_ —would just _let you_ fuck up one of her employees like that?” Shiro frowns when Lotor nods at him. “Even by our standards, Barbie, that’s an extreme reaction to some two-bit Crossroads Demon insulting the state of my soul.”

“Anyone who would welcome a creature like me into their life and extend an offer of friendship because they did not want me to feel so _alone_? Must have a brilliant, beautiful soul, Takashi.” The poignancy of the moment feels slightly undercut by Lotor going for a sip of coffee, only to find his cup quite empty. Nevertheless, he insists, “That demon insulted your soul in order to manipulate you; they emotionally kicked you when you were at your most vulnerable. Had Adam not already taken care of them, I _would_ have asked Acxa for a favor and done the deed myself.”

Maybe Shiro should have some ideas of what he can say to that.

Maybe he should have some questions for Lotor about who this _Acxa_ person is, aside from _“a powerful demon, evidently.”_ (Where she was during Shiro’s ordeal with selling his soul—that could be a good place to start. But then again, Shiro might sound presumptuous and annoyingly egotistical by even acting like he has a right to ask that question when Lotor needed time to warm up to friendship.)

Maybe Shiro _should_ do a lot of things—but ultimately, he gives Lotor a nod, then looks to Mom. “How’s the search for signs of intelligent anything going?”

“Some potential hunts have emerged, should you and Adam take an interest in them. I wouldn’t turn down help from your deck, however, if it were in a certain mood or wanted to provide any insight.” Sighing into her palms, Mom rubs at the bridge of her nose. “Should they enjoy the idea of assisting us? We may need something more intense than a three-card spread. So far, I have found signs that _might_ point us in the direction of a few hunts, but only _after_ we settle the issue of how you returned to us. None of what I’ve dredged up resembles anything you’ve said, or anything that we might know about angels, or…”

Mom doesn’t need to ask again; Shiro starts shuffling his cards. As they swish around in his hands, he focuses on the situation at hand, silently asking the universe to channel itself through his deck, to spell out some of what it’s getting at through the conduit of this reading. Once he’s cut the deck how he likes it, he lays out fourteen cards in the modified Celtic cross formation that Lotor taught him. Flipping the first three—a pair laid next to each other, with one turned horizontally and laid across them—Shiro finds the Seven of Cups, Strength like before, and the Five of Wands.

“Well, it’s likely a _good_ thing that Strength came to us upright.” Lotor huffs and taps on the cards as he explains, “The Seven speaks to confusion, wishful thinking, a muddled sense of reality. What is possible, what is fantasy, don’t ask you because you don’t know—”

“Sounds about right for how I feel—”

“The Five coming in the position of ‘That Which Crosses You’? Strong opinions on all sides complicate the situation. Misinformation abounds. Nothing seems to work out right, you’re getting lost in petty struggles—such as that between your ego and the evidence in front of you. Not to continue flogging a horse that we’ve already killed and turned into a revenant—”

“Strength only speaks to my _outer_ self, though.” Well. It would, if this were a personal reading. In lieu of that, Shiro sighs as he jots down some ideas about what they’ve seen so far. “I guess this position can’t _avoid_ speaking to my role in things? I’m sort of enmeshed in all of this, right at the center of everything. But it still only gets at the _appearance_ of things, how people _perceive_ the situation—or how they perceive me.”

“Are you truly arguing with the idea that people think you strong? Determined? Brave? Compassionate? Or with the notion that we see your current position as one where you could stand to listen to your inner truths and…”

Lotor trails off as Shiro flips the next four cards. He starts with the one right below the first three, then moves clockwise, unveiling which cards have wound up in the halo surrounding the central cross. For his own part, Shiro doesn’t let himself drink in any of the illustrations, much less ponder what they might mean, until he has all of them revealed. The first one makes Shiro groan, with its image of a lithe young man riding a white stallion through a beautiful pastoral scene, completely in the nude. His warm-toned brown skin gleams under the light of a stylized, golden sun, which takes up more than half the frame. If not for him turning up reversed like this, Shiro might smile over seeing this guy.

“Root cause of the problem,” he mutters, “and it shows me _Adam’s_ card—”

“It doesn’t _need_ to be his card—”

“Mom, the Sun has been _Adam’s card_ to me since _before_ I bought a deck where the illustration looks so much like him that it’s downright eerie.” Between that and how much The Moon’s illustration resembles Keith, Shiro sometimes wants to go back to San Francisco, see if he can’t find the artist who made this deck, and try to figure out if the man was legitimately psychic. Sighing, Shiro drags his hand down his face. “Worse—because we _really. needed._ anything to get worse—he had to show up inverted. So, instead of optimism, we’ve got failure, loneliness—”

“Clouded judgment. Pessimism. Depression and a loss of hope. Restlessness. Trauma—”

“Fancy way of saying that we got here because I sold my soul to save my Sunshine, Barbie. As if we didn’t already know that. Put The Sun together with this little bastard?” Shiro points at the Three of Swords, rearing its ugly head again and having the absolute temerity to be upside-down. “We ask what has most recently come to pass—of the points that are most relevant to the situation at hand—and the cards tell us, ‘Conflict, sorrow, heartache, loss, seclusion, turbulence, disorientation, the pain of facing unfriendly truths’—”

“But they were _not_ true, though.” Mom scoots closer to the table, squinting down at Shiro’s spread. “The things that we faced, Kashi? The things that we accepted—I suppose we would need to ask Adam for his own perspective—”

“He did not think to question the points about our dear Takashi’s allegedly permanent demise. For all Adam _also_ sought to undo the situation and revive his Starlight, he _needed_ to accept Shiro’s death as a reality. In order to address a problem, one must—”

“What if—and I recognize that this is an outrageous concept, but—what if I’m _right_ , actually?” Mom narrows her eyes as if to say that Shiro will regret interrupting her. “What if this card _doesn’t_ indicate Adam, for once, but instead points toward Leliel, or someone else? Someone we may not even realize has become part of the equation, no matter how important they are—”

“Considering where Shiro has recently been locked away? I would also suggest that _he_ might have accepted certain ideas as true, regardless—”

“So, anyway, our best possible outcome is the reversed Page of Swords.” Shiro gestures at it. “Whoever recently accepted anything as any-whatever? We’re all coming up on mind games, bad ideas, poor planning, injustice and unfairness that we can’t do shit about—not for ourselves and not for anyone we try to help—unreliable information—”

“Or the Page _could_ indicate that we simply need to exercise caution because…” Lotor rests a long finger on the next card, with its image of a disembodied hand emerging from a brightly colored storm, holding aloft a glittering silver sword. Atop the blade sits a golden circlet crown, from which dangle a bunch of mistletoe and a strand of leaves that Shiro once identified as laurel, with some assistance from a library book. Around the base of the blade, near the pommel, someone has tied a scarf or ribbon or _something_ with bright, bold, rainbow-patterned stripes. “As the Page’s Ace indicates, we are entering a period of new concepts and ideas, a time that will require us to persevere through adversity, if we want any potential _good_ to emerge from evil—”

“That’s all very poetic, Barbie—”

“The Page and the Ace are out of synch with each other, which could suggest that one of them warns about the other—”

“So, where do Baldwin and his lion fit in?” Shiro drums a fingertip on the Strength card, explaining, “People see me as strong and courageous, or so say the cards. Or if not that, then the situation’s calling on me to be brave. Or, if that’s how the _situation_ looks from the outside, then is it a case where everything looks all honorable and righteous, but behind the scenes, it’s actually a confusion?”

“It _could_ be any of those things.” But Lotor uses both hands for this, touching the Page of Swords and Strength at the same time. “May I propose that the Page seeks to remind you of your considerable inner strength? He could mean that certain mental manipulations, lies, and traumas have made it difficult for you to remember that truth of yourself.”

That interpretation wouldn’t phase Shiro too terribly, if not for the way that Lotor locks eyes with him. Trying to return the gaze makes Shiro’s muscles writhe. Sends a feeling crawling and wriggling through his skin, like insects made of ice. Yes, Lotor’s getting at something in particular—something related to Hell, like as not—but that doesn’t mean Shiro needs to indulge his best friend in whatever nonsense Lotor thinks this is because he _doesn’t_. The only things worth discussing right now are the cards, the spread, and all of the interwoven layers of meaning—everything that might have some bearing on the situation at hand, that might tell them something about Leliel, where to find them, what the team might find when they _do_ find this creature.

Nothing about Hell. Because Hell is over. It’s done. Shiro only needs to worry about what’s ahead of him, not what’s behind. For example, shifting his hand to the seven-card L-shape that frames the cross. The first of them, speaking to the heart of the matter, shows Shiro an illustration of a blithe young man with corn-yellow ringlets, waltzing along his merry way with a little white dog, as if he can’t see the chasamous abyss that he’s about to stumble into.

“Carelessness. Apathy. Immaturity,” Lotor sighs, and Mom rolls her eyes like she agrees with him. “Lack of hope or faith. The sort of irrational stubbornness that makes someone deny the existence of angels immediately after being—”

“Could also indicate that something is wrong with my Dad. That’s his card, just like The Sun is Adam’s. Sure, I _sometimes_ see Sunshine in The Hanged Man, just like I sometimes see Dad in The Hermit? But they’re way more likely to show up in The Sun and The Fool, respectively.” Shiro sips his coffee; he should finish before it goes cold. “So, is there anything to get from chasing that rabbit? Is there something up with Dad that I should know about?”

Mom takes a deep breath, considering that question. “Losing you was hardly easy—for _any_ of us—”

“Considering that your father stayed home during our run on Lilith in New Harmony? And the fact that you departed by promising him that you would do anything you could to make it home—”

“Are you trying to say I _didn’t_ do everything I could have reasonably—”

“I think that Lotor is more trying to say… While your _godfather_ and I were present and tried to help save you, Hikaru stayed back with Bennett—”

“Therefore, in addition to the grief from losing his only son, your father may be dealing with feelings of guilt and regret, over his perceived inaction—”

“But he _wasn’t_ inactive! Before anybody else, he figured out what I did. He spent  _months_ trying to help save me, while I was busy acting _stupid_ —”

“Kashi, we aren’t speaking in logical terms, right now.” The flat, unimpressed expression that Mom gives him all but begs Shiro to stop insulting everyone’s intelligence by playing stupid—which would be fair if he were doing that. Pouting at her only makes Mom shrug like she’s doubling down, though. “We are talking about how your father may judge his actions unfairly, in light of your death and the fact that, during your last few hours of life, he stayed behind. Such feelings could easily make him do something reckless—which _you_ , of all people, should understand.”

Swallowing thickly, Shiro gives Mom a guilty nod. “I can’t judge any reckless shit that Dad does without condemning how I brought Adam back.”

“Exactly—and I don’t know if your revival will stop Hikaru from doing something reckless. Even with you returned to us, your father  _does_ still want to hunt down the demon that Hell made of Adam’s father—”

“Which I hardly blame him for, Noshiko, considering  _why_ he wants that vengeance. One could even argue that Hikaru would be doing a public service, given some of the demons who found Jacob West quite enjoyable company—”

“In a more general sense, though,” Mom supposes, “Hikaru _is_ something of our familial heart. If something goes wrong with him, then it seeps out to the rest of us before too long. Or  _his_ vindictive desire to wreak something worse than Hell on Jacob’s demon could suggest a different issue, one that all of us need to address in ourselves—”

“That leaves the question of Leliel, though. Do they mean to _help_ us address this hypothetical problem? Are they going to exacerbate things—”

“Kashi’s one reading _did_ name them as a  _Healer_ —”

“But angel or not, they have their own agendas, their own senses of morals and ethics. We don’t know them or how they operate, or why they returned him to us—”

“Nothing in any of these readings has suggested that, either. Perhaps we should _ask_ —they could have any number of ideas in mind—”

Not that Mom and Lotor don’t have good ideas, but they aren’t letting Shiro have a word in edgewise. So, rather than keep listening to their back and forth, he reaches for the next card. Once again, he flips over The Moon and it shows its face upside-down. Reversed or not, though, he hasn’t seen this card so often since the run-in with Reverend LeGrange, his wife Sue-Ann, and the Reaper that she had on a leash. In the position that’s meant to reflect Shiro’s family, friends, and general collection of external influences—or, in a more general reading, the way that their team’s relationships with each other might affect things with Leliel and whatever they’re bringing with them—Shiro wishes that The Moon had gone somewhere else. Or that it had stayed in the deck instead of cropping up again.

“Any difficult confrontations we aren’t having? Perhaps some particularly intense issues that we’ve left unaddressed,” he deadpans, pausing to take down some more notes. Rather than hearing any response from Mom or Lotor, Shiro picks out the sound of the _Victor/Victoria_ -loving hipsters arguing about whether or not some episode of _Family Guy_ ripped off the title song from a movie called _Road to Morocco_. If Ryan were here, he could answer that question in a second, probably without thinking—and he could _definitely_ manage it without clicking over to Youtube and turning on one of the songs in question.

Of course, Ryan being here would probably mean that James came with him, and Shiro could do without seeing that ignorant pot-head ever again. Since Adam won’t _let_ that be an option, though, Shiro can settle with simply not seeing James for as long as possible. He could also do without Lotor humming pointedly as The Lovers returns to Shiro’s spread, inverted as it was before, and quirking his brows at Shiro as if that _Look_ on Lotor’s face should make the slightest bit of sense.

“There’s nothing new about me being afraid of losing people,” Shiro says flatly, flipping the next card. “Or hoping for better connections. Or wanting stronger relationships but being afraid of getting hurt, or running into communication issues, or… whatever else.”

The eleventh card proves far more interesting. Its art depicts a beautiful, naked guy—one who, much like the figure on the Nine of Swords, reminds Shiro of himself. However, the guy in the Nine of Swords sits alone in a dark room, weeping into his hands while swords protrude from the walls surrounding him. The Star, however, shows a tall, muscular guy with tawny skin like Shiro’s. Posed like one of Ojiisan’s vintage pin-up photos, he sits beside a placid lake with his legs angled so his feet never touch the ground or water while the viewer doesn’t get to see his dick. Thick, untamed locks of black hair cascade down to his mid-back, and his pensive gray eyes look up at the eight-pointed silver star that hovers above him. Filling in the expanse of sky, several smaller, golden stars surround that big, central one, and the whole array reminds Shiro of gemstones.

Before Sue-Ann LeGrange’s Reaper saved Shiro’s life, he didn’t think dwell on how much The Star-guy looks like him. One crucial detail always stuck out about their resemblance, rendering it an obvious coincidence, rooted more in Shiro projecting than anything serious. Namely: the young man in The Star’s illustration has a shock of white in his hair, a streak of fringe that frames the right side of his face—exactly like Shiro’s floofy forelock and how it’s grown in white ever since that visit to the alleged faith healer.

Creepy? Yes. Weird? Definitely. Still, Shiro would rather look like The Star than the Nine of Swords.

“Considering your personal attachment to that card,” Lotor muses, “seeing it in the final outcome position? Could indicate that what’s happening is meant to help you become the most fully actualized version of yourself.”

“But he’s upright while The Sun and The Moon are inverted, so… Am I out of synch? With Adam?”

“Darling, no one expects you to slip back into your life as though you never went to Hell. In addition to that, life _did_ carry on without you, for all neither Adam nor I enjoyed it very much—”

“You sure enjoyed each other very much, it sounds like—”

“Not the point, Takashi!” Hissing, Lotor can’t stop his cheeks from flushing dark—adorable, more so than a demon has any right to be. “All I mean to say? Is that I would be more shocked if you and Adam _didn’t_ need to reacquaint yourselves with each other after so long apart… After you’ve both _experienced_ so much.”

Yet again, Lotor throws Shiro a Pointed Look that Shiro guesses he’s supposed to understand. Unfortunately, he does have _some_ ideas, and Shiro’s stomach wrenches, twisting itself in elaborate, painful knots at the thought of what Lotor _might_ be getting at.

“In light of this _entire_ reading, so far? I might hazard a…” Lotor trails off into a sigh and droops toward the table. “Well, in my experience, seeing The Star alongside the inverted Lovers indicates a certain abnormal sensitivity to your loved ones’ faults… Alongside the _Fool_ , I would say that the entire celestial triad speaks to how much you _can_ learn and grow from the coming events—but as you say, The Star being the only upright card could speak to a sort of isolation or alienation from the ones you love. The Fool and The Star both sit in positions that speak to _you_ , personally, and _could_ suggest that your tendency to trust those of us who come to you disadvantaged or with sob-stories?” Lotor presses a finger into The Fool and adds, “Could lead you to ruin or unnecessary pain, if left unchecked.”

“Or maybe it already _has_ ,” Shiro mutters, looking down at The Moon.

“That… isn’t what the card you’re focusing on suggests, no?”

“I mean, think about the Fool and how he gets on with Swords. Creativity and productivity on one hand, but forging new partnerships on the other—and _maybe_? Maybe, once upon a time, I let someone into my life.” Shiro traces his finger down The Moon’s illustration. “Maybe, letting that person into my life was _good_ , but now, it’s created a new way for someone more unscrupulous to hurt me.”

“Darling, I speak more with reference to how much better you deserve than the treatment that you typically accept. Unless you would attempt to argue that you _never_ suffer any ill consequences, thanks to your tendency toward self-devaluing, self-destructive behaviors and thought patterns.” Resting his chin on his folded hands, Lotor drawls, “So, you think that The Moon might represent a real person, then? Much as you associate The Sun with Adam and The Star with yourself?”

“Yeah, but he isn’t you, so—the guy I’m thinking of with The Moon, I mean—”

“Obviously not. You know full well my Major Trumps are Death and The High Priestess.”

“But I’m just wondering if… What if Leliel goes after this guy.” That’s what they implied they would do, talking about Keith as their _vessel_ , as if getting possessed by a monster is some kind of _honor_. “Targeting someone I care about in order to hurt me is _low_ —”

“You think Leliel would do that?” Mom frowns in the way she does while trying to loose power cords or pondering the options on a hunt, once evidence has ruled out the Big Three of ghosts, demons, and witches. “Whatever they are—angel or not—they _did_ save you from Hell. Why, now, would they decide that they wanted to harm you?”

“No idea. I’d sure like to ask them to their face—”

“Takashi Sebastian Shirogane, you are _not_ summoning that creature—”

“Oh, wow, breaking out the Confirmation name and everything—”

“If you’re right, then we have no idea what they are. If the rest of us are right, then we have little to no idea what angels can do—”

“Somewhat more than a _little_ ,” Lotor interjects, then blushes again. “…When Adam and Commander Iverson have finished with their research, I mean. And finished translating the texts of interest to them. Then, we should have a great deal of useful information about this Leliel, one _hopes_.”

“Look, as you two were _just_ saying: we don’t even know what Leliel _is_ ,” Shiro points out. “I know how to summon my fair share of interesting beings. But I wouldn’t know which ritual to pick, and you _know_ that, if I fucked it up, Bennett wouldn’t help me. He and Dad would call _you_ and rat me out before I got the chance—”

“They would have every right to do so, darling. Under the circumstances—”

“What about the boy you’re worrying over?” Mom reaches around the laptop to tap her pen against The Moon. “Do you mean Yuki? Or someone else?”

“Someone else.”

“That Liam boy from Indiana? Or Paris—”

“No, neither of them. I don’t really have _any_ Major Trumps that I associate with them, and Yuki’s got different ones. We haven’t even _seen_ one of his today.” Mostly because The Magician almost never shows up in Shiro’s readings for himself. With a huff, Shiro tugs on his white forelock. “Though, speaking of? Belated interpretation of that Hanged Man: maybe the reversed position means that Leliel _doesn’t_ want something to do with the Hanged Man. Maybe they don’t want me contacting Yuki—”

“You can make a booty-call _later_ , darling. Flip the next card.” The roll of Lotor’s eyes comes off too fond for Shiro to take it seriously. Ditto for the sigh that he lets slip when the Hanged Man crops up, upside-down like he was before. “You’re going to call him for a hook-up as soon as Noshiko and I leave you alone, aren’t you.”

“I wasn’t planning on it, but that _is_ a good idea. Fuck, if everything about me got repaired when Leliel brought me back? Maybe I need to lose my virginity all over again—”

“Ugh, _darling_ —”

“I’m not _serious_ , okay? Come on, I know this is important. Besides, I’m not feeling like getting laid, right now.”

Turning over the next card reveals an illustration Shiro knows very well: a skeleton clad in black armor, a scythe with a gnarled staff in one hand; the blade and his platemail gleam dangerously under the light of a blood red moon. His other arm loops around the waist of a tall, lean, fine-featured young man, who reminds Shiro of both himself and the host-bodies that Lotor usually chooses, though the fancy black clothes definitely match Lotor’s taste more than Shiro’s own. Atop the pretty boy’s halo of ginger curls sits a silver crown with inlaid black gems. Tangling himself in Death’s embrace, the young prince fixes his gray eyes only on the skeleton-face. He’s practically swooning over the monster holding him—which, in fairness, Shiro did himself, when he finally talked Ulaz into showing off his true form, rather than the admittedly handsome human visage he first let Shiro see.

Although Shiro tries to fight his impulse to be a brat when his deck is only telling truths, Lotor heaves a sigh for both of them. “Our dear friend Death might be more welcome if he were upright. As it stands, however…?”

“Maybe I’m out of synch with _myself_?” Shiro waves his finger at the table, alternately pointing at The Star and Death. “I might guess _you_ , under other circumstances. You or maybe Lilith. Death shows up for all three of us—”

“Lilith _could_ provide a fruitful avenue for interpretation, though. Inverted, Death highlights delays, stagnation, blocks to our personal growth—which Lilith could easily provide for you—”

“Or it could mean that I’m holding myself back, somehow—”

“I won’t argue with that reading, either, especially in light of your insistence on denying the potential existence of—”

“What I want to know is: what does my personal development matter to Leliel? Why is it _any_ of their business, _period_?”

“One card yet remains, darling.” Lotor shrugs and gestures at it. “Perhaps the last piece of additional insight will clarify everything.”

“Maybe not _clarify_ , but… Point taken.” Shiro takes a deep breath to steady his nerves. He closes his eyes as he flips the last card.

When he opens them again, Shiro regrets everything. Shudders wrack his chest. He coughs, but he can’t make the shivering stop. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that someone reached inside his chest and replaced his heart with an iceberg, or maybe a black hole. Which is a _stupid_ reaction, every bit of it, because a _tarot card_ , on its own, can’t hurt him. Even the ones that Shiro doesn’t enjoy seeing, they can’t do anything to harm him, not for real. The only pain they can inflict is digging their claws into Shiro’s emotions and scratching at his heart too hard.

Something about _“The Devil,”_ though, makes Shiro’s insides reel like he’s plummeting through an endless carnival drop-ride. Like so many of the more destructive cards, the background on this one has been filled in with black ink crosshatching. Unlike many of them, though, The Devil’s backdrop looks more like sentient darkness than a simple night sky. Tendrils of shadow curl around the figure who dominates the frame, embracing his _Mandate_ cover-model abs, licking at the bulging muscles in his arms and thighs with their thick veins that, even in a still drawing, seem to pulse with unholy life. Those legs practically invite the viewer to submit for him, just like the two naked, tawny-skinned boys whose leashes he holds; even his glittering, cloven hooves don’t keep his pets from bending the knee and bowing their heads as if in prayer.

So many other decks that Shiro’s seen portray their Devils in shades of black and red, but in this deck, he’s silvery white. Rather than a goat’s head like depictions of Baphomet or some hideous parody of a masculine face, this Devil has the sort of square jaw and high, imperious cheekbones that made teenage Kashi swoon when he stole some of Uncle Mitch and Bennett’s vintage skin-mags. Shaggy tufts of fur line his face and massive neck, but to Shiro, the Devil’s facial hair has always reminded him of Viking berserkers, despite the lack of proper beard. More fur covers his chest, stomach, arms, and legs—but never enough to hide his muscles, of course—while impressive, golden horns sprout from his head. Although they curl and twist like wisps of rising smoke, they’re easily as thick as his hooves and their sharp, angry ridges keep them from looking anything but deadly.

Before Shiro died, his gaze always wound up in one particular place, when he’d draw this card. Namely: this Devil’s massive, turgid cock. Like his horns, his shaft must be about as thick as his hooves and with that raging erection, its head barely misses the bottoms of his meaty pecs. Painted an angry, fleshy shade of pink—the only thing of this shade in the whole illustration—the Devil’s cock demanded attention, and no matter how much negative energy this card has, Shiro is a simple man; he likes sex, he enjoys naked men, and he has a special place in his heart for any guy who’s bigger than he is, not least because they’re such a rarity.

Today, though, Shiro can’t look away from the Devil’s face—specifically, his eyes. That leering grin makes his arms break out in goosebumps, but those _eyes_ as good as punch Shiro in the stomach. The brightest part of the image, the Devil’s eyes have no pupils. Even so, they seem to stare straight into Shiro’s soul, gleaming opalescent white.

If he didn’t know better—if not for certain details that don’t line up exactly—Shiro would wonder if the artist for this deck had ever met Sendak at some leather bar or dungeon, or maybe in a queer men’s bathhouse, before more or less all of them shut down. Maybe he didn’t realize it consciously, who he was really taking home, but on some level, he might’ve known: he was bedding a demon. Not any old demon, either, but Lilith’s Grand Inquisitor, the supreme master artist of torture, Picasso with a razor.

Nausea crashes into Shiro at that thought, sets him shivering like it’s mid-February and someone’s dropped him through a hole in Lake Michigan’s ice. There’s nothing wrong; he’s fine. He has to be fine. He’s out of Hell, and Sendak _isn’t here_ , so Shiro _must_ be fine. It’s just… cold in here. Nippy, like. That’s it—the cold. Shiro’s fingers fumble at his flannel like pulling it tighter around himself will somehow help. His hands tremble as he forces down the rest of his coffee. Even though he knows it’s nearing room temperature, it scalds its way down his throat. Whatever heat was left in his drink, it dissipates and leaves Shiro tugging his arms into Uncle Mitch’s old leather jacket.

“The AC in here,” he splutters at Lotor and that fucking eyebrow he’s raising in a silence that wants to rub Shiro’s face in whatever Lotor thinks he knows. Smoothing his hands down the sleeves, shaking out his floof like it might clear up the feeling like talons curling around his throat, Shiro insists, “That’s all it is. The AC, they—they’re running it _way_ too cold, okay? I’m _fine_.”

Lips pursed like a Givenchy handbag, Lotor starts to counter with a point that, very likely, is both sensible and fair. Shiro can’t quite hear him, though. Somewhere else in the café, a sweet and easy melody starts up, horns and a piano, and it drowns out every other sound. The patrons talking, the A/C unit’s hum, the bustle of baristas making coffee—they all fade away into an emptiness, an absence of noise.

Then, a nasally tenor lilts into the room, singing, _“Heaven—I’m in Heaven, and my heart beats so that I can hardly speak, and I seem to find the happiness I seek, when we’re out together, dancing cheek to cheek…”_

Oh, _fuck_.

Shiro wobbles, pushing himself up from his seat. He gambols like Bambi and with every step, he feels like he could collapse—but he pushes through. Somehow, he barrels past everything in his path. He makes a beeline for the nearest restroom, the first open stall he can find. As his knees hit the cold tile floor—as he doubles over the porcelain bowl and vomit scorches up his throat—Shiro hopes this at least ends quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Write a Supernatural AU,” I said.
> 
> “It’ll be FUN,” I said.
> 
> —In fairness, I was right and I generally stand by that life-choice. This year has just been, all around, a massive cluster-fuck of family drama, illness, depression, anxiety, pinched nerves in the elbow of my dominant hand (which makes everything about the physical act of writing just…… _sooooo_ much fun. in a way that is actually quite painful and the exact opposite of fun), deadlines and the piling up of them, making my writing life harder by starting more projects than I should have, and a whole host of other nonsense.
> 
> ………Also, SPN canon is still a very uniquely special thing to try and remix. This chapter wound up going through more drafts than I usually do, with most of the early ones getting scrapped outright, because I kept noticing ways that SPN canon was complicating things that I thought I’d already arranged quite neatly and in a way that made sense.
> 
> As seen here, a lot of SPN canon has still been given a miss or turned around for various reasons—for example, Shiro and Keith having a prior relationship/familiarity with each other, unlike Dean and Jimmy Novak, who literally wouldn’t know or care about each other at all without Castiel getting involved. The “various reasons” range from emotionally significant things like, “Shiro having some kind of backstory with human!Keith is important to me” to pettier shit like, “I see SPN canon’s point that Victor Henriksen and Dean never made out or slept together.… Sure would be a shame if someone changed that, huh.…… What if Victor had a threesome with Adam and Shiro after ‘Jus In Bello,’ ohhhh, that’s nice, it probably won’t come up in this chapter, but it’s a good thing to know and maybe I’ll write it later, if I get some free time for smut that isn’t part of a previously extant project.”
> 
> Speaking of Special Agent Victor “Hot Stuff” Henriksen: he’s alive and well because I felt like it. He’s hunting with Nancy Fitzgerald, the virgin secretary from “Jus In Bello,” and Corbett from the Ghostfacers because I think they’re neat. They’re coming in “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Takashi Shirogane” rather than this installment because…… There’s kind of a lot going on here already and shoehorning Victor in wouldn’t have been as fun as giving him room to actually snark and mid-key flirt with Shiro, react to things more freely, and generally be his incredibly charming self.
> 
> Another character/world-building note: yes, Allura is Meg in this reality, and I have a very simple reason for it. Jo!Pidge was one of the earliest castings I decided on, outside of Sheith and Lotadam. My favorite Meg ships were Jo/Meg and Cas/Meg, so even with Sheith being an explicit endgame in ways that Destiel never will be, I needed to pick someone who I shipped with both Keith and Pidge. That meant either Hunk or Allura, and I liked Hunk much better for Chuck than for Meg. Plus, Allura works better as a foil for Lotor, and she introduced a lot of fun possibilities for what to do about Michael and Lucifer.
> 
> ……Also, she eventually ends up on Team Free Will sooner than Meg does because I think it’s neat and that Meg deserved better.
> 
> …………Also also, Allura afforded me the opportunity to make a gratuitous meta joke about the differences in character design between DOTU!Allura and VLD!Allura. Like, GoLion!Tsuyoshi/DOTU!Hunk and VLD!Hunk, overall, look very similar to each other, whereas GL!Fala/DOTU!Allura is a skinny, blonde alien who looks like a white girl vs. VLD!Allura’s dark brown skin and mystical silver hair. Which appealed to me, personally, because I find meta humor like that hilarious.
> 
> So, TL;DR, the blonde, white girl!Allura is Meg 1.0, VLD!Allura is Meg 2.0, and either way, the demon’s given name is Belial [**because that has been my**](https://archiveofourown.org/works/386683) [**headcanon about Meg**](https://amorremanet.tumblr.com/post/6447277817/well-my-personal-canon-is-that-megs-real-name-is) since 2011, and at this point, if SPN canon wants to disagree with me, then they can come pry “Meg’s given name is Belial” from my cold, dead hands.
> 
> Allura is not, however, Azazel’s daughter like my headcanon Meg. Mostly because I couldn’t quite get my head around Azazel!Alfor or Azazel!Coran, and I had ideas for both of them that I liked better, hence allowing Azazel to be one of the characters who I didn’t bother recasting and just wove into the crossover.
> 
> Anywho, it is my hope that, now that this AU knows what it is when it’s at home, updates will be significantly less, “If I put a lot of content in it, will that compensate for how it took seven months to write?”
> 
> Until chapter five! ♡


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lotor tries to be there for Shiro about Hell and Sendak, while Shiro remains fixated on one, Keith Kogane, and the news reports about a very suspicious motorcycle accident.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Q: When will I learn to quit playing myself by nominally committing to writing a short chapter, which then sometimes ends up with me splitting chapters up because they get overloaded with activity?
> 
> A: Good question, I’ll let you know when I find out.
> 
> * * *
> 
>  **Warnings for this chapter:** more explicit discussion of underage sexual abuse (of Shiro, by the previously mentioned NPC, Jason; overall, the discussion still isn’t that explicit, but there’s more detail than previous chapters have had, and most of it comes from Shiro). Also, in a flashback scene, Keith is twelve while hitting on Shiro, who is nineteen and trying very hard to make Keith stop.
> 
> Also, for those of you who like such things: I’ve been putting together Spotify mirrors of my playlist for this AU, mostly to share them with friends who’ve had to listen to me whine about getting overly finicky with songs and the order they go in. So, **[here’s the section of playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/amorremanet/playlist/5WZLv12tAc0ANAKSfcPAcU?si=321d8c_wQ8aDntR5q6dbOQ)** that covers everything that’s happened in this fic so far and the rest of what’s coming (feat. some sections for the flashback scenes).

Shiro doesn’t know how long he spends on the floor. Could be minutes, could be hours. Long enough for the tiles to feel almost warm beneath his knees. Yet, not long enough for too many other people to wander in. Dimly, he thinks he only makes out one set of feet entering, and while Shiro doesn’t think they leave, he’ll settle for how the person attached to them doesn’t say anything about whether or not he belongs in this particular restroom.

When he finally peels himself away from the porcelain john, Shiro sees _why_ he hasn’t heard any of that noise: Lotor’s waiting for him, slouched against the wall with his arms folded over his chest, giving Shiro a long, silent look that refuses to be outright judgmental, but only because Lotor _knows_ that Shiro knows all of the objections he, Lotor, could potentially raise.

“Word of advice,” Shiro deadpans, shuffling toward the sinks, “do _not_ , under any circumstances, have what she’s having.”

Lotor hums noncommittally. While Shiro paws at his jacket’s inner pockets, digging for the travel-sized brush and toothpaste-tube that, thankfully, his family left in place during his summer in Hell, Lotor moves to join him. He sits on the edge of the counter, occupying one of the only dry spots and facing the opposite wall—but for a long moment, he says nothing. Which is Lotor’s own prerogative, Shiro supposes, then focuses on going through the motions of wetting his brush, getting it ready, scrubbing the vestiges of vomit from his teeth and tongue—none of which should faze him, except for how alien the process feels… Like he’s been out of his body too long and no longer remembers how any of this should work.

On one hand, Shiro appreciates the silence between him and Lotor; the idea of trying to talk with his mouth full of toothpaste sounds as gross as throwing up feels. On the other hand, part of him wishes that Lotor would get it over with already, cut to the chase and spill what’s on his mind.

Right as Shiro’s going in for a second round of brushing, Lotor bats gently at his shoulder. “You don’t need to pretend that everything’s alright, you know. Wanting to present a brave face for your mother, for your father and Commander Iverson, for _Adam_? I understand that, Shiro—but I should _hope_ that you know why you don’t need to fake like that with me. Even if we were not friends, I wouldn’t expect that of you.”

For all the snarky retorts he _could_ level, Shiro settles for something simple: he looks Lotor in the eye, hoping that his face glazed over like he’s feeling Supremely Unimpressed, and jerks the brush down his line of teeth.

“Yes, well. That’s as may be, but.” Lotor’s cheeks flush as he hugs himself tighter. After giving it a few moments’ thought, he tries again, saying, “My point is _not_ that you haven’t just been sick, Takashi. The point I wish to make is that I know _why_ you got so violently ill, and that, better than anyone else in your life, I understand. Remind me, when you’ve finished: who told you, in the first place, where demons come from?”

Shiro hawks up his toothpaste and groans. “You did—but that’s sort of a moot point. I didn’t feel well. That’s all. Don’t read too much into it, okay?”

Nodding, Lotor gives him another hum. Without words, it seems to ask if Shiro wants to reconsider that answer. Faced with the fact that, actually, Shiro’s fine with what he said, Lotor fixes him with a stare so pointed, he could run the Trickster through and make that obnoxious _ben zonna_ stay dead. Even Lotor’s reflection—filtered though it is through the mirror and the extra layers of mental processing—makes Shiro’s stomach turn like the gastric pyrotechnics could easily start up again.

A third round of scouring his mouth may not _help_ , exactly? It eases some of the edge off, though… _Some_ of it… Not enough to _completely_ settle Shiro’s insides, but enough that he almost feels like things could play out in his favor, like he and Lotor might slink back out to join Mom at the table, and she’ll have found the one clue that they need to tie everything together about this Leliel, and they’ll get on the right track about _doing something_ , literally anything, about this hunt that they don’t yet comprehend.

Instead, Lotor waits for Shiro to spit before asking, “By the way, darling, how is Sendak.”

Shiro’s grip goes loose. His toothbrush clatters in the basin. That name—Lotor says it so casually, as if asking Shiro to check the weather reports on his new phone. But the syllables slam into Shiro’s chest. They shock up his spine. Every nerve stands at attention; every muscle tenses, ready to throw a punch, or else run screaming, or—or—or—or Shiro doesn’t _know_ “or what.”

Trembling, his body tries to collapse. Tries to yank all sense of stability out from under him like a tablecloth under a fancy tea-set, pulled by an amateur who sends the china crashing to the floor.

At least Shiro catches himself. His hands spring back to life in time to grab the edge of the sink. No trips to the ER necessary, not right now.

Except holding himself up like this does fuck all and a bag of chips to stop him shaking. It feels like he might never stop, not even if something kills him—and something in here very well could. The room around Shiro might not need to do anything. Struggling to will himself to _calm down_ , he chokes on his own breath. He clings to the porcelain but still feels like he could slip out of reality at any moment. His knuckles strain like their bones could slice clean through his skin, spewing blood, and snapped tendons, and viscera—and, along with them, all manner of memories that Shiro—

No.

No, not memories. That can’t happen here. Only in Hell—that’s where injuries draw out Shiro’s recollections of his own life… Where every slice and stab will drag him back into moments long past as though they’re happening all over again… Where Sendak chopping off his hands can summon a high-definition playback of anything from some indistinct scene of Shiro packing shotgun rounds with rock salt to his fingers combing through and tugging on Adam’s hair during their last night together—the last night before Adam left for Stanford—when Shiro breathed him deep and gave his Sunshine everything he could and more, aching with the hope that maybe, this would be enough… Maybe, he would be enough… Maybe love would conquer all like in the stories and, come morning, Adam wouldn’t ask for a ride down to the bus station and ship out for California…

Shiro gasps. His hands quiver around the sink, nails digging at the ceramic. Staring down at the mix of saliva, puke, and toothpaste, logically, he recognizes what it is. But it can’t be real, can it? Everything about Adam leaving him back then—from the soft swish of Adam’s hair beneath his touch to the warm spots flaring up across his face and neck and collarbone in different places where Adam kissed him—it’s all so vivid for Shiro now in a way that ties up his nerves and muscles, and makes him wish that he could vomit his gutter soul up, next.

His physical pain calling up these memories, making Shiro relive them with a sick, sharp clarity that only Shiro’s dreams have ever rivaled—this means _nothing_ here is real… Doesn’t it?

No, of course it does. Stupid of Shiro to think otherwise. How long has he been in Hell? He _knows_ better.

Dammit, what is _wrong_ with him? How could he let himself believe he’d broken out and gotten Topside. How could Shiro let himself think that, after everything he’s done and everything Sendak’s already made of him, somebody cared enough to yank him out of the Pit, then healed his body and gave him another chance as if they couldn’t _see_ that Shiro belongs in Hell, that he _belongs_ with Sendak, that if he didn’t inherently belong here, then he’s surely earned his position with the weakness he’s displayed, and—and—and—

 _Fuck_ , this is so like Sendak, leading Shiro on with hope, only to crush him down harder for daring to want _anything_ but that which Sendak gives him. The footfalls behind Shiro now… That drumroll before his execution—the big _“wow”_ finish—they _must_ be Sendak coming for him, coming to remind Shiro of his place in the universe and of the demon who owns him, then throw him down and take him however many times that Sendak wants. Before too long, it won’t matter what Shiro likes or doesn’t because his pain will drown out everything else about his world.

Except the touch that sneaks onto his arm… Shiro flinches, but it’s gentle. The squeeze that follows—it sends a bloom of warmth into his chest. An embrace, not a vise-grip. With a deep, unsteady breath, Shiro turns his gaze on whoever’s joined him. Earthy brown skin… Finely carved features… Blue eyes gleaming earnestly… A silver-blond ponytail that cascades down to a teeny, narrow waist, so much smaller than it should be, if Shiro’s remotely on point with his thoughts of baskets teeming with french fries…

“Lotor,” Shiro mutters. Relief wracks his body, shuddering through him, when Lotor nods. At least these tremors don’t hurt him any. They feel like saddlebags being taken off of Shiro’s shoulders. “‘m not in Hell?”

“No, darling. Not anymore.” Flipping that stray cowlick off his face, Lotor slumps onto the edge of the sink beside Shiro’s. “I apologize for slapping Lilith’s second in your face, the way that I’ve just done. I did not intend for it to rattle you so terribly, though I _did_ mean to shock you—which I realize was not the _nicest_ approach? However, with your legendary stubbornness in mind, as well as your periodic refusal to take your own welfare seriously…”

“Yeah, you’re forgiven, I mean? All of it’s just… That’s fair.”

Not so much so that Shiro will skip rinsing his mouth out before telling Lotor anything else—but on the other hand, he’d want to do that anyway, regardless of this particular turn in the conversation. The splash of cold water on his face helps to better ground Shiro, too. _That’s_ real; _that’s_ happening in the world, not in his mind and _only_ in his mind. When he’s finished going through these familiar motions and hoping one of them makes him feel less ill-at-ease, Shiro mirrors Lotor’s posture: he sighs and perches on the edge of the sink behind him.

“As for Picasso with a razor over there? The Van Gogh of Anguish and the Salvador Dalí of Suffering?” Shiro’s hands itch to do _something_ —literally anything, as long as they prove that they’re back to working only for _Shiro’s own_ impulses. In lieu of any ideas that might appease his tendency to be what Liam Braeden would call _Extra_ , Shiro settles for tugging on his floofy white forelock. “Y’know, that sick, rapist _ben zonna_ who thinks his some kinda Max Ernst of misery because he apprenticed with the Spanish Inquisition—”

“Sendak would prefer comparisons to Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Il Sodoma, and Hieronymus Bosch—”

“Fine, I’m open to compromise. If he’s gonna be precious about hating artists from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, we can settle for calling him Lilith’s own personal experiment in, ‘What if El Greco were a torture master.’” Lotor arches a brow as if to ask whether or not Shiro has entirely finished with whatever he thinks he’s doing, this time. Folding his arms over his chest, Shiro shrugs at him. “I mean, I’d compare Sen-Dreck to Robert Mappelthorpe, given what he’s into? But I actually enjoy that man’s photographs and people are unfair enough to Mappelthorpe as is, y’know?”

“I shall take your word for it, darling. Point of factual correction, though: Sendak did not _learn_ from the Spanish Inquisition; he _instructed_ the Spanish Inquisition.” As he joins Shiro in folding his arms, hugging himself, Lotor pales as if he might need his own turn to go be sick. “One of Sendak’s greatest accomplishments, in his own estimation, was not only teaching Ferdinand and Isabella’s Tribunal of the Holy Office as much as he could about torture while working outside the more malleable reality of Hell, but also successfully convincing them that their campaigns were justified… That they were _righteous_.”

“Absolutely delightful.” Shiro bites back on another shudder, tamping it down before it can start in earnest. Several sarcastic remarks come to mind—but when he finds his voice, all he can spit out is, “How did you know?”

“Technically, I didn’t, but given what I knew of the situation and the players involved? No other _likely_ options stood out to me.” Lotor hunches around himself with the grave air of someone who wishes they could have the privilege of explaining something more pleasant. “Your soul, Takashi, is no ordinary soul, whether you believe that or not. Moreover, you were of considerable importance to Lilith, as well as a not-insignificant thorn in her paw. Even working with the assumption that she would forever possess you, Lilith would not have risk assigning some low-level minion to the task of your _care and keeping_.”

Sucking in a deep breath, he cringes. “She _might_ , under certain circumstances, have considered sharing you with Honerva? But until my own escape, Honerva stayed quite busy with torturing _me_. Therefore, the only _true_ option? Must have been Lilith’s Grand Inquisitor and her most loyal commander.”

“Guess they’ve had a lot of time together, building up that rapport and all…” Shiro lets his head loll back, neck stretching to accommodate the dip—then gasps as a memory strikes. “They… In Hell, you said? You called reality, ‘malleable’? Does that mean… Could Sendak have faked a _memory_ , down there? Or made up details of one? So, like, if somebody hurt him back—like, say hypothetically, if someone bit his cock off while he intended to _maybe_ make them suck it like a _good_ boy—”

“Then that someone could have seen any from the scores of noteworthy assaults that he has committed in his millennia of life.” Lotor shivers. “For all the power he wields over the fabric of reality in the Pit, Sendak would have had no control over which remembrances of rapes past that person _hypothetically_ uncovered. Likewise, he would not been able to distort his own memories as you’re suggesting.”

Hearing this would do enough to jar Shiro out of his previous ideas and leave him shivering, trying to process the implications of what Lotor’s saying while his mind screams that they can’t be right. Reeling from this revelation would do enough to make Shiro feel like he might start throwing up again.

But then, Lotor decides to go on, “Speaking in the strictest of _hypotheticals_ , of course? Such an enterprising soul might have met with Sendak’s memories of WH Auden… George Gordon, Lord Byron… King James the First and Sixth, as well as his dear George Villiers… Edward the Second and Piers Gaveston… Saint Augustine of Hippo, hypocrite par excellence… _myself_ —”

“Wait, what—Lotor, what are you—”

“He, the soul in question, _also_ might have seen the night that first roused Lilith’s interest in Sendak—”

“Hey, can we go back to the other thing—”

“Once upon a time, in the Jordan river valley, when the demon we know as Sendak was still a man called—”

“Lotor, _seriously_. What did you mean by—”

“When he still lived alongside Lot’s family in the city of Sodom,” Lotor drawls, fixing Shiro with a flat, sober expression, “and when Sendak led his neighbors in forcing their way into Lot’s home, dragged Lot’s guests through the streets with power that exceeded what a mortal man should have had, and _violently raped_ a pair of _angels_.”

Shiro’s protests die in his throat, refusing to let him get out a syllable. He swallows thickly, and try though he might, he can’t look Lotor in the eye. All his attempts make Shiro’s cheeks and neck burn hot with shame. He can’t stand up properly straight, either. Although he gives it his best efforts—although he fights to avoid slouching like a dog who pissed on the carpet—Shiro’s entire body sags with the knowledge that Lotor guessed _exactly_ which memory of Sendak’s Shiro has in mind.

“Sendak is one of the only demons who would truly understand the stakes now facing us,” Lotor whispers, bowing his head and digging his fingers into his arm so hard, Shiro gets sympathetic pain from watching him. “Allura is another. As I told you, so many of our brethren don’t think that angels could possibly be real. I envy them that blissful ignorance, because angels _are_ real, Takashi, and the possibility of their _open involvement_ in mortal affairs? Should scare the holy Hell out of you.”

For all Shiro wants to argue, stick to his guns, and refuse to back down until he gets inarguable proof one way or the other, he nods. Gently, he puts a hand on Lotor’s shoulder. There’s a time and a place for everything, and right this second—with Lotor going death’s-head pale and tense as a rubber band about to snap—Shiro doesn’t need to be contrary. He’s already put Lotor through enough today, and no matter which of them is right about what they’re dealing with, things might not get better for quite some time.

“Last alleged angel that Adam and I ran into? Turned out to be a particularly manipulative ghost, ramming his own ideals and morality down innocent people’s throats.” Shiro sighs and gives Lotor a squeeze that he hopes is reassuring. “If _real_ angels are coming out of the woodwork all of a sudden, then why would they do that? What kinds of possibilities are we looking at in the category of ‘Things That Make Angels Come A-Knockin’’?”

“Any number of things, all of them terrible.” Inhaling deeply, Lotor lets his eyes slip shut. Although he doesn’t untense, not really, his expression takes on a more pensive look. “A slight correction, though: the trouble at hand is less that angels are operating, more that they have chosen to make themselves known—not only to mortals, but to the demons who saw when they harrowed Hell to pull you out. Regardless of their intentions, regardless of their true mission? Sending a garrison into Hell for any reason will likely register as an act of aggression—an unprecedented military attack—which means that the forces of Heaven either do not fear war, or think that they have already been provoked.”

Shiro gives himself a few moments to think, to search for some analysis that might live up to the intelligence everybody wants to think he possesses, despite all the counterevidence he’s ever handed them. Ultimately, though, all he comes up with to say is, “So, what you’re telling me… is that we’re all kind of fucked, no matter what happens next?”

“I would prefer a somewhat more specific term? However, my initial thought is, ‘Caught in the crossfire,’ which may not prove accurate, as more information comes to us.” Lotor lets go of hugging himself. Hard to take that as a good sign, though, when he drags his hands down his face with such a bone-deep, weary groan. “If you feel well enough, darling? We should return to your mother. Perhaps, we should put the cards away and try to offer more practical, immediately useful help.”

“That’s part of why I wanted to fuss with them, though. We’re at the stage where there _isn’t_ a lot I can help with—”

“No, I suppose not—unless any further memories resurface for you—”

“Well, I’ll let you know if they do,” Shiro says, almost letting himself believe that he’s actually forgotten anything. “I wouldn’t hold my breath too much, though. Memory’s fickle, and something like what I went through… It feels like a situation where you either remember nothing, like _most_ demons—”

“Or else you remember _everything_ , like myself.” With a soft sigh, Lotor squeezes Shiro’s elbow. Every inch of him radiates concern, as if he’s pleading with Shiro when he says, “As Sendak’s only other victim who can be said to have survived his handiwork, Takashi? I can understand what you went through in a way that no one else can. Should you wish to talk? Please, trust me, as you friend, and allow me to help. However I can do so for you, I will.”

In the face of Lotor’s eyes shining so sincerely, Shiro wavers. He shouldn’t burden Lotor with his problems—he _knows_ that he shouldn’t dump things on Lotor unnecessarily, not when Lotor’s one of the precious few friends he’s ever known—but looking at Lotor now, he can’t deny: if their places were reversed, Shiro would do anything he could to help Lotor, and it wouldn’t strike him as a burden. Guilt roils through his chest, twisting and writhing, coiling around Shiro’s insides, trying to punish him for the mere thought of denying Lotor the chance to help him.

It’s not what friends do—not what they’re supposed to do, at least.

“Thanks, Barbie— _Lotor_. It… It means a lot. Even when I’m being… I don’t know? Entirely myself.” Nodding, Shiro forces himself to look Lotor in the eye and promises, “I know you want to help, and I won’t forget that. Right now, though? What would help me most is… Y’know, giving my memories some time to maybe unscramble themselves—like, resurface and come in clearer? That and getting back to work would do me a universe of good.”

“Of course,” Lotor agrees, and mercifully, he skips pointing out how close Shiro’s skirted to admitting that his memories aren’t as absent as he tried to claim, when Lotor and Mom tried to press him for more information.

About the last thing Shiro wants to handle right now? Is getting called out on what he remembers from the Pit. He especially can’t handle that when somebody as innocent as Keith might be on some grand chopping block because of his relationship with Shiro.

 

* * *

 

The first time Shiro’s path crossed with Keith’s, an unfriendly neighborhood witch had been making trouble all over New Marmora, Ohio. As in so many hunts that ever come Shiro’s way, things had seemed straightforward but progressively gotten more complicated and more twisted around. Even after the malicious magic-weaver had, in so many words, run into the business end of her own miscast spell, people kept dropping dead. With some poking around, though—and a few inside tips from Keith—Shiro and Yuki had pinned down the true source of New Marmora’s problems.

Only one snag cropped up in their plans, and as Shiro drove back to the place where he and Yuki were squatting, said snag was sitting in Ariel’s front passenger seat. Haloed in the moonlight and streetlamps passing by as they rolled through town, Keith Kogane, age twelve, had chosen to brave an unseasonably chilly October night with a flimsy zip-up hoodie sweatshirt and nothing else. A stormcloud cloak of black hair flopped around the too-sharp angles of his face. The skinny leg he’d curled up to his chest had a weathered thigh-holster strapped around it. Rather than a gun, though, Keith had sheathed a knife whose blade, at the time, was nearly the size of his forearm.

“So, my English teacher’s a serial killing wicked witch now, huh.” Keith prodded without asking a question, so unruffled that Shiro would’ve believed Keith talked about insanity like this all the time. Turning up the volume on the music made Keith pout, but did not stop him from pointing out, “This isn’t the Bob Dylan version.”

“Nope. It’s Hole.”

“Who?”

“You know… Hole? Courtney Love’s band?” Stopped at the last red light on New Marmora’s main strip, Shiro groaned at Keith’s blank-faced lack of recognition. “Okay, so, you’ve heard of Nirvana, right? Like, the band from Seattle, not the Buddhist concept.”

“I think, um…” Keith squinted until he gave up and shut his eyes entirely. “Thace’s husband, before he died? He really liked them? And I think my old babysitter used to like them, too? Before Kolivan decided to fire her.”

“Do I even want to know why he fired her.”

“She let me watch the capitalist propaganda on MTV with her, one afternoon.”

“Okay, he has a half-decent idea about that, _I guess_.” The light changed, and Shiro only held back on flooring it because the New Marmora cops made every other cop in Ohio look like a slacker, they pulled so many people over for ever so slightly violating the speed limit. “I mean, he’s totally up his own ass about the _specific_ reason, sure? But MTV hasn’t been good since they fired Carson Daly from _TRL_.”

“Sounds cool. But seriously, the only stuff I saw was dumb reality shows about stupid rich people acting like idiots. If they were _any_ kind of propaganda, then they totally _agreed_ with Kolivan. I don’t know how _anybody_ could see those people as _aspirational_.”

“Well, that’s because you’re special,” Shiro deadpanned, “and not so easily seduced by the fact that those people are rich and on TV.”

Keith considered that for a moment, then shrugged. “I’d be _really_ easily seduced if _you_ were rich and on TV. Or not. Or whatever.”

Cringing, Shiro made himself hold a deep breath for a count of ten. The song had since faded out into a new one—Depeche Mode’s “Walking In My Shoes”—which Shiro somewhat appreciated. Not as much as he would have under different circumstances, but fully enjoying a beloved song while trying to decide what to do with what Keith had said…? Shiro would’ve had an easier time of getting into Stanford without sexually servicing the admissions board. He would’ve had an easier time of getting himself away from Jason _without_ any of the help he got from Mom, from Yuki, from Adam.

He almost shuddered, but Shiro bit it back in time, from letting himself think of Jason. No, nothing would ever happen there again. Jason went missing in the wild forests of Colorado, which, for a hunter, almost definitely means he’s dead. If he’d ever told the truth about anything in their relationship—about how Shiro had been asking for everything that Jason put him through, about how badly he’d _wanted_ Jason, about how he’d come onto Jason first, that night at Holt’s Roadhouse, when he’d asked to see Jason’s heirloom silver knife—then maybe Shiro had made Jason feel this same skin-crawling nausea.

Ignoring Keith’s advances, then—probably the best idea. The opposite of what Jason did.

Shiro sighed. “So, once upon a time in Seattle, you had a little band who called themselves Nirvana. During the age of high-budget, overproduced hair metal, they came out of the woodwork with a stripped down, punk kind of sound—”

“So, they single-handedly saved rock-and-roll?”

“No, not really. Some people will say so, but… Well, I guess they have a right to their wrong opinions.” Quirking his shoulders, Shiro went on, “Their front-man, either way? His name was Kurt Cobain, and he was… troubled. In a lot of ways. Which led to his eventual death in 1994, but before that happened, he fell in with this woman named Courtney Love.”

“Almost makes it sound like they were some kind of Bonnie and Clyde shit.”

“More like Sid and Nancy—and please, tell me you know who they are?”

Keith nodded. “My cousin taught me about The Sex Pistols, yeah.”

“Kurt and Courtney had a slightly better ending, I guess? In that only one of them died, but—”

“But that’s arguably a _worse_ ending, right? I mean, to be left on Earth when the person you love is gone?”

“Happens every day, like it or not. Plus, he killed himself like _right_ around the time when _Live Through This_ was coming out—”

“What was that?”

“An album. From Hole, Courtney Love’s band.” With a huff, he waved at the ipod that Adam had scrimped and saved to get him for his last birthday. “Click around in there and you’ll find the Hole pretty easily. Just look for them under the ‘Artists’ folder, and look on _Live Through This_ until you find a song called ‘Doll Parts.’ Then, turn it on.”

“Favorite song?” Keith hummed as he picked up the mp3 player. “‘cause you were dancing so much to Joan Jett and George Michael, your first night in town? I kinda guessed that they’d be more your favorites.”

“Yeah, well, the jukebox at your parents’ bar didn’t _have_ any Hole, did it. Plus, they aren’t so good for dancing.”

“Makes sense, if they want to sound stripped down and honest…”

“Which they did—but my point is?” Keith hadn’t asked for a rant. In the back of his mind, Shiro recognized this. On the other hand, most people never would’ve let him get this far in talking about his favorite band. So rather than hold back, he told Keith, “Everyone always remembers Hole as, ‘Courtney Love’s band; she was Kurt Cobain’s wife.’ They talk about her like she’s some crazy, heroin addict footnote in a great _man’s_ story—never mind that Kurt was _also_ crazy and a heroin addict. Never mind that Courtney survived abuse, and assault, and being taken advantage of sexually, and that’s before she ever _met_ him. Never mind that, when they met, _she_ was the one who was already established and had a successful career, while _he_ was riding _her_ coattails. Never mind that she had her own damn story, or how…”

He trailed off, frowning as the music changed. An emotive piano line, joined first by an arrangement of strings and then by an ethereal mezzo-soprano, singing, _“Spring was never waiting for us, dear. It ran one step ahead—”_

“You listen to Donna _Summer_?” Keith didn’t quite sneer, which would’ve rankled from anyone else, save three specific people. “You’re over here, gushing about how much you love some punk rock queen, and then out comes _disco_?”

“She’s the _Queen_ of Disco, though. Iconic—”

“Doesn’t she hate gay people or something?”

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Did _Kolivan_ tell you that.”

Keith huffed. “So what if he _did_?”

“Look, _your_ gay uncle taught you to read out of _The Communist Manifesto_ and I respect that—”

“ _Das Kapital_ , actually. Plus, _1984_ , and Emma Goldman, and Kolivan’s monographs—”

“But _my_ gay uncle and his equally gay husband taught me the street-level version of our queer history.” Pulling up to a stop sign, Shiro glanced at Keith. Right in time to see him glowering, which earned a round of sighing out of Shiro. “From what I’ve seen of Kolivan? I don’t doubt that he was out in the streets, too—”

“Yeah, _good_ , you _shouldn’t_. Because he _was_. His and Antok’s work was _important_ —”

“But the way that he _talks_ about queer history? It’s like politics mean more to him than the people, and I can’t get with that.” Shiro made himself take a couple deep breaths before going on, “As for Donna Summer? First of all, there is _no direct evidence_ of her saying that AIDS was God punishing queer men. She apologized to ACT-UP publicly, and _owned_ that anything she’d said could’ve been misconstrued that way. She did her time, making amends to her queer male fans, so if _Kolivan_ doesn’t want to forgive her, _fine_. That’s his business; he can do what he wants. But Uncle Mitch and Bennett _did_ forgive her, and I like her music, so there we go.”

“……Okay, jeez,” Keith muttered, after a moment’s consideration. “Guess I got some less than accurate information.”

Vaguely, some part of Shiro wanted to huff and point out that the current shortness of his temper had a lot to do with how and why he’d found Keith in his passenger seat—but in the interests of doing the _opposite_ of what Jason would have, he inhaled deeply. He took another slow, steady breath after that, and then, another. He kept it up until his nerve felt calmer and his lungs felt like they could burst from how much air and how much pressure he’d forced into them.

As Donna Summer’s song played on, Shiro said, “…I’m sorry. For going off like that. It… I’m not usually like this.”

“Because you usually have Yuki babysitting you emotionally?”

“ _No_ … I mean, _kinda_ , but? …Like, no, that doesn’t _hurt_ , having him around _helps_ , really, but even if he _were_ here right now, I might’ve still done that. Someone—some _thing_ else… It was getting to me. Still is, and it probably will for a while.” With a sigh, he shook his head. “I shouldn’t have taken that out on you, though, is my point. So, I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” Keith nodded, then prodded, “Is this about that Adam guy? The one you and Yuki call, ‘Sunshine’?”

Shiro’s grip tightened around the steering wheel. “Yeah. In so many words, it’s about him.”

“Sorry… Not like it helps… Losing somebody you love…”

“At least it isn’t like he’s _dead_.” This earned a bemused sound from Keith, and Shiro tried to give him an apathetic one in return. It came out a few shades too pointed, if he asked himself—but maybe Keith wouldn’t bother asking. “Sorry if we gave you that impression? But Adam’s alive and well—better off than _us_ , honestly.”

“But then… How come you talk about him like he’s _gone_?”

“He always hated this life. Always wanted to get out. So, when Stanford gave him a free ride…”

Trailing off like that, in Shiro’s mind, made it undeniably clear: Adam wouldn’t come back to him unless something came along to steal everything about his shiny new California life. Whether Keith got the message as intended or not, he slumped in the passenger seat like he understood exactly what Shiro meant. Without words, he radiated a sentiment like, _“Death would’ve been better than abandonment.”_

As Shiro turned down the second-to-last road on their route, Keith finally announced, “Found the song.”

Relief swept over Shiro—but it didn’t last. Rather than the stripped-back strumming of a guitar and Courtney Love’s droning intonation that she was doll eyes, doll mouth, and doll legs, Ariel pounded with the heavy, pounding beat of a bass drum. Electrified chords tore through her speakers, screaming their self-insistent authenticity. Not country like the Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton tracks that Keith had consistently picked out for the past few days, but classic rock that someone had lovingly produced until it didn’t _sound_ produced. Whatever they’d done, though, the music avoided the raw territory that Hole happily veered into.

Against all hope, Shiro wished to be wrong in guessing the song Keith had turned on. As if spiting him, John Cougar Mellencamp bust out in his unhewn baritone, singing, _“When I was a young boy, said, ‘Put away those young boy ways’—”_

“ _Keith_.” Shiro glanced at him long enough to watch Keith shrug like he had no idea what Shiro objected to.

_“Now that I’m gettin’ older, so much older—”_

“ _What_ , Shiro.” He huffed. “It’s a good song.”

_“I love all those young boy days—”_

“Whether it’s good or not isn’t the _issue_ —”

“Well, it _should_ be. Plus? It’s _your_ ipod.” Keith groaned in a way that made the roll of his eyes unmistakable, even without Shiro being able to see it. “God, do you _really_ want me to change it? Is it _that_ big a deal?”

“ _Yes_. Don’t put on Hole, if you don’t want to. But I can’t deal with _this_ , okay?”

While Keith fiddled, Mellencamp kept singing— _“Hurts so good! Come on, baby, make it hurt so good! Sometimes love don’t feel like it should…”_ —and fuck, Shiro regretted ever relenting on his “Driver picks the music” rule. He let himself sigh warmly when the song changed—but again, the ostensible deliverance didn’t last. Overtop of a simple but fancy piano line, Freddie Mercury crooned, _“I can dim the lights and sing you songs full of sad things—”_

“ ** _Keith—_** ”

 _“We can do the tango just for two_ — _”_

“Hey,” Keith snapped. “All you _said_ was no _Mellencamp_ —”

_“I can serenade and gently play on your heartstrings—”_

“Except you _know_ why I _really_ asked you to turn that song off—”

_“Be your Valentino, just for you—”_

“So, you can go ahead and turn _this_ off, too.” They pulled up to the last stop sign before Shiro and Yuki’s temporary home, and Shiro took the chance to stare at Keith. Narrowing his eyes, Shiro hoped that he looked sufficiently serious without being too threatening. “When we get inside, ask Yuki if I _ever_ let anyone turn off Queen. In case you’re confused about how _serious_ I am, right now.”

“Ugh, _fine_.” As Shiro set off down the block again, Keith groused like he’d made the worst, most painfully offensive of all possible requests.

Yet, the song changed almost immediately, as if Keith had had his selection ready. No, he didn’t put on _Hole_ , but the bright, spritely guitar had an almost nostalgic sound. Shiro hummed pensively. He _knew_ this song. Worse, he knew that he recognized the melody, which meant that he should’ve remembered the song better. The title danced around the edges of his mind, taunting him with how he _definitely knew_ this sweet, earnest, poppy little ditty, but refusing to just give him the answer without first driving him up a wall. God, even his own brain wanted to play, _“I know something you don’t know”_ with him—how exhausting.

Then came a female singer’s voice, imploring, _“Kiss me, out on the bearded barley. Lightly, beside the green, green grass_ — _”_

Grinding his teeth, Shiro clicked Ariel’s “eject” button. Heated breaths grumbled out of him, and his trusty car spit out the special cassette that let him play his ipod on her speakers. He only eased into a stop outside the house out of respect for Ariel and her brakes, because right that moment? Shiro could’ve spit fire as he clicked out of his seatbelt and turned to look at Keith. Everything burned inside him, but he would’ve sworn that the car felt colder.

Like he’d picked up on the same feeling, Keith shivered. He curled in on himself, wedged himself into the corner between the door and the seat.

“How many times do we need to go _over_ this,” Shiro hissed. “What part of, ‘I’m not going to kiss you now’ have I _not_ been clear about.”

Defiantly, his eyes gleaming in the moonlight, Keith scowled. “What? Because you’re _nineteen_ —”

“ _Yes._ Exactly—”

“If I were eighteen, y’know? You’d only be twenty-five. That’s less than the gap between Kolivan and Antok—”

“It’s less than the gap between Uncle Mitch and Bennett, too, but _that’s_ completely not the _point_ —”

“The point _is_ ,” Keith huffed, “all I want is to give my first kiss to someone special—”

“The _point_ , Keith? Is that _I’m_ nineteen and _you_. are. twelve—”

“ _Why_? Why is _that_ the point?” He drew his knees up to his chest, hugged himself around the shins, balled his fingers up in his ragged jeans. “I’m old enough to hunt a wicked witch, apparently! So, why are you making _kissing me_ the point?”

“Because. You’re. **_Twelve_**.” Heat still hadn’t leaked out of Shiro. Not as much as he would’ve liked. Every word came out quietly, deceptively soft, the vocal equivalent of black ice, waiting to slip someone up and send them clattering to the ground. “Second of all, I _tried_ to take you home. I _tried_ to keep you out of the dangerous parts of this hunt. But _you_ climbed out of your window while you _mom_ was thanking me for being _nice_ to you. Then, you broke into my car.”

Keith took a deep, shaky breath. He ducked his chin, and for a moment, Shiro hoped that Keith would back down for once in his life.

Instead, Keith insisted, “It’s only a _kiss_ , okay? It’s not like I’m asking you to _fuck_ me.”

“Yeah, well, that’s your opinion. Now, let me tell you why it _isn’t_ ‘only a kiss’—”

“Because you’re whining about some kind of outdated straight people ideas of morality—”

“Because I _know_ , from experience, that it _can’t_ be only.” This—Shiro hadn’t meant to talk to Keith about this. But he’d dug himself into the conversation anyway, so Shiro said, “When I was your age? I met a man. I’d seen him around some of the places my mom and uncle worked before, but I hadn’t really _met_ him—”

“This story doesn’t have a happy ending, does it?” Keith winced as Shiro shook his head. “…Sorry. Go on.”

“There’s a lot of what Jason did that I can’t tell you—like, _literally_ can’t. Not without your parents or uncles signing off on it—”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re twelve, which means that I, an _adult_ , can’t give you all the details about how Jason hurt me. Because they go into territory that the law says I _can’t_ expose you to, not without permission from another adult.” Sighing, Shiro let his body wilt. He’d expected an explosion. With how white hot his feelings had flared mere moments ago, they should’ve required some kind of _big_ release, like emotion could’ve rent and burst out of his chest with slime and viscera and powerful alien claws.

But Shiro’s voice came out so softly, he barely felt like he was saying anything, and he told Keith, “Jason was so nice to me, at first. He was older, and cooler, and so handsome. He knew what he was doing in the world, both with me and in general. The first night that he made a move on me? I was supposed to be doing homework with Adam and this other guy, Matt—he’s the son of some family friends—but I went over and talked to Jason instead.”

Shiro shuddered. “He didn’t believe that I’d already had my first kiss, so he said he had to test me, like I had to _prove_ that I knew what kissing was like. When he saw me getting apprehensive?” Shiro’s hand trembled as he tugged it through his hair. “Jason calmed me down by telling me we weren’t doing anything wrong because it was _only_ a kiss. And I _guess_ that it was—”

“Shiro?” Keith inhaled sharply. He extended a hand, then tugged it back, seeming to think better of whatever he’d had in mind. “Shiro, are you…? What are you…?”

“It was only a kiss… until it wasn’t anymore.” Shiro swallowed thickly. “Until Jason kept asking for more and more from me, and I gave it to him, almost always, because the _last_ concession hadn’t been that bad, so how much damage could _this_ one do. He made me trust him—made me _love_ him—and that’s…” Shiro’s head bowed itself, as if looking at the leather-covered seat between himself and Keith would somehow keep Keith from seeing his shame. “Jason only stopped because he’s dead. And he’s only dead because, I’m pretty sure, my mom got him.”

“But…” Keith dropped the hand that he’d held out. He angled himself toward Shiro, splayed that warm palm over Shiro’s fingers. “It wouldn’t _be_ like that with us, though? You’re not _like_ him. You wouldn’t _do_ that to me, right? So, why can’t we…? Why can’t we _try_?”

“Because I _know_ how much damage can come from _only_ a kiss.” For all his stomach churned in protest, Shiro made himself look up again, made himself look Keith in the eye. “Even if _I_ don’t hurt you, Keith, someone else _could_. You might not feel like they’re hurting you—I didn’t feel like that, most of the time—but the ways that people can hurt you, like this? They aren’t always obvious, at first. Jason’s been gone two years and I’m still finding new places where he left scars, places I never expected or thought about until something _happened_ to make me realize that I was hurting, in _pain_.”

Inhaling deeply, Shiro doubted whether or not he could bring this all back to a central point. Especially with Keith staring at him, so pale and wide-eyed that most people in his position would’ve already asked to go home and never hear from Shiro again, he couldn’t help the guilt that twisted in his chest. It thrashed, kicking at him with the unfortunately familiar feeling that he, Takashi Shirogane, was a monster worse than any of the malicious entities he’d been raised to hunt—exactly like Jason had said while accusing him of being a user and a heartbreaker. How could Shiro be anything _but_ a monster, if he could make Keith look so sick?

But sick or not, Keith met Shiro’s eyes. He squeezed Shiro’s hand as if he weren’t afraid, as if he didn’t understand how anybody ever could be. Moreover, when he nodded, Shiro _knew_ that Keith had been listening to him—not just hearing him, but taking everything that Shiro had said to heart. 

“I don’t want to do anything to you like what Jason did to me, Keith. _No one_ deserves what I went through, and even opening one door that could lead to other doors, which _could_ end up with you getting hurt? I don’t want to do that. It’s one of the only risks I _won’t_ take.” As much as Shiro didn’t want to lay down the ultimatum hovering on his tongue, he took a deep breath and added, “If you can’t respect this, then I’m taking you _home_ and I’m telling your parents, Kolivan, and Antok _everything_ , even the parts about hunting monsters, even if they make me sound insane.”

Keith let himself take a few moments to ponder this. They had to get a move on, yeah, but their plan tonight was to catch the wicked witch by surprise during his downtime, rather than to interrupt a big deal ritual. If they were going to have a long conversation that kept them from attending to the hunt itself, tonight was the best night to do that.

“What if…” Keith gnawed gently on his lip. “When I’m older? What if I still want to kiss you, then?”

Shiro sighed. “We’ll trade numbers before Yuki and I head out. After you turn eighteen, if you still want to kiss me, then? You can call me and we’ll see what we can do. But I don’t want to hear anything about kissing until that happens, okay?”

“Okay, you won’t,” Keith said without hesitation. Squeezing Shiro’s hand, he smiled. His eyes glimmered dangerously as he asked, “So, you old serpent, what’s our plan for dealing with Mr. Johansson?”

 

* * *

 

Back at the table with Mom, something about the air feels different. As Lotor ducks into the line for more coffee, she zeroes in on the laptop. She nods to Shiro, but hums with productivity that he can’t manage right this second. Asking whether or not he feels okay doesn’t drag her out of whatever track she’s gotten onto in her search. Whatever she _thinks_ she’s getting done while they wait for Lotor, she _would_ put it down if Shiro wanted to properly explain himself. Mom would drop so many things if it meant hearing him admit to his problems and give anyone the chance to help him.

Instead of taking the chance to create a Moment, Mom hisses almost victoriously. Something like glee flares up in her eyes as she tells Shiro, “I might have something. It could be nothing, but in our line of work? When does that ever happen?”

“Basically never,” Shiro agrees. He only breaks his focus because Lotor rejoins them and he got Shiro some water to go with his coffee. Sighing, Shiro says to Mom, “So, what kinds of supernatural signs make the great Tenō Noshiko think she’s seeing angels?”

“Hail, one imagines. Locusts. Rivers turning to blood,” Lotor deadpans, breaking off a piece of oatmeal raisin cookie. “Torrential downpours of frogs. People braving unfathomable darkness to paint lambs’ blood over their lintels. Rains of hellfire and brimstone could also tip us off, if you believe the traditionalists.”

“None of the above—or, at least, not in this case. Not today.” Mom taps at the keyboard for a moment, then recites, “‘Breaking: No deaths reported in major US-13 crash, one missing’—certainly sounds like our kind of headline?”

“More than a little.” Still, as he forces himself to take a deep breath and a long drink of water, Shiro feels something yawn open inside of him. Something cold and empty, like deep space is supposed to be. “Even if we don’t find _angels_ , we could have a good case.”

“It’s a short write-up if you’d like to read it for yourself—”

“No, Mom, seriously. I trust your judgment, I do, I’m just asking—”

“Seventeen cars and a motorcycle all involved in the wreck,” she says, glancing down at the screen again. “Yes, that’s the right number, outrageous as it sounds. No trucks involved, which was lucky. Happened on the outskirts of Glouster, Ohio, either way. Last night, a huge storm started out of nowhere—black clouds blotting out the sky, rain like no one could’ve predicted from the weather reports, winds that tried to rival a tornado—”

“Masses of black smoke zooming all over the countryside—”

“Nothing of the sort. Not that anyone’s said—”

“That could be them,” Lotor mutters, barely audible. “Ananiel, storms. Ramiel, thunder, Baraqiel, lightning—”

“Then,” Mom adds, “witnesses say that there came a blinding light. Not like you’d expect during a storm or an explosion, though. It might be nothing, but people are saying that this was pure, white light, coming down to the road in a pillar. The survivors who got closest to it told reporters that the motorcycle got caught, swept up in the light.”

Beside her, Lotor nearly chokes on a sip of coffee. Pausing to let him splutter and cough, Mom hums at the laptop.

As soon as he’s settled down, though, she picks up where she left off, telling them, “Some of the other drivers skidded out, trying to dodge the pillar. Plenty of them rammed into each other. With how many people were on the road, heading out of Athens proper—with how many of them _crashed_ —someone should have gotten injured, right? But staff at O’Bleness Hospital couldn’t find any signs of damages, quite the opposite—”

“What, somebody pulled a stunt like Reverend Roy?”

“Aside from how, in a cross-reference, I could not find reports of other, similar deaths that happened around the same time? Meaning that no one traded one life for another? Yes, Kashi, someone healed the survivors, rather than permit them to die.”

“Pretty considerate for a monster—or, y’know, one who looks otherwise malicious. At the risk of sounding like the Vatican, though?” Shiro slouches onto his elbows and takes a long drink of his coffee. “Where’s the evidence of a miracle? Or angelic involvement? We could be looking at the Fair Folk, or certain kinds of dragons, a whole host of pagan gods…”

Mom purses her lips like she expected that kind of answer and Shiro still managed to let her down.

“One of the survivors had recently been diagnosed with Stage IV Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma,” she says, looking him in the eye as if she can literally peer into her son’s soul, same as she once pretended to have little yokai assistants who’d tell her when he and Adam misbehaved. She _didn’t_ , as far as he knows, and she _can’t_ see exactly what he thinks and feels, but the intensity behind Mom’s gunmetal gray eyes still makes Shiro curl in on himself. “The cancer had started spreading from his lymph nodes to the rest of his body. Grim prognosis, but his daughter was driving him into Athens for chemotherapy regardless. Care to guess what the doctors found while examining him after the crash?”

“Nothing,” Lotor murmurs, letting his hands drop to the table and cupping them around his cup.

The certainty in his voice gives Mom pause—but for all she stares at him, Lotor’s head stays bowed. His gaze stays rooted to his coffee. At least, he’s looking in that direction; when Shiro peers more closely, Lotor seems to stare at something beyond the mortal realm entirely.

“My stars,” Lotor whispers as if he can’t tell that two of his humans are staring at him, or else doesn’t care, “of course the doctors didn’t find anything… Angels wouldn’t—or they _might_ not—not on their own, I mean? But if their _vessel_ … If the vessel _requested_ it, then they would _need_ to honor that…”

One of his hands leaps off the table. He buries a soft gasp in his palm. For all he doesn’t explain what he thinks he’s on about, he’s too wrapped up in whatever it is to react when Shiro reaches across the table and snaps his fingers. Fine then, they’re temporarily down their demonic witch-in-residence. No sense in stopping the work, though, so Shiro looks back to Mom.

“What about the person who went missing?” Simply acknowledging their existence sets a chill loose on Shiro’s insides. It seeps through him, twisting and writhing like it wants to make him sick up all over again. Like he _knows_ the answer that’s coming but can’t wrap his tongue around the words for it. Like saying it aloud will make it more real than the headline did, and somehow, this will drag Keith into trouble that he doesn’t deserve and never asked for. “What’s the story with them? Did the article actually say?”

As Mom inhales deep and slow, the air at their table feels heavy—more so than it should. Laden down. Thick with foreboding more obnoxious than Adam’s old Stanford friends, the ones who insisted on quizzing Shiro about _Beloved_ and _The Brothers Karamazov_ because they refused to believe he could’ve _properly appreciated_ Dostoevsky or Toni Morrison with only a high school diploma to his name. So help him, Shiro could vomit again from the toll that waiting for Mom’s answer takes on him. From the feeling like knife-legged spiders crawling up and down his spine, worming just beneath his skin.

Finally, Mom sighs. “The motorcycle’s rider, or that’s who they think got—”

“Only what they think?”

“It’s a confounding situation, Kashi. Investigators feel lost, out of their depth—”

“Well, it’s nice to hear humility from their kind for once—”

“The motorcycle itself got knocked off the road at some point,” Mom tells him, quietly but not quite gently. “But the only reported damages came from that. It wasn’t reported stolen. No one who survived the wreck owned the bike. No footprints in the mud, so they don’t think that the rider left the scene. No signs that anyone _took_ them from the scene against their will, either. Then, there are the eyewitness accounts—”

Shiro gasps. He tries not to, but it happens. Holding that breath like doing so might somehow change her answer, he can’t look at anyone but Mom. Wrapped up in the work, tapping the down arrow key, she tongues at her lips and wrinkles her nose.

“According to the article, only a few of the survivors reported seeing anything like this. Most of them didn’t notice, and the so-called _journalist_ seems to think it’s all a joke—or worse, fertile ground for a conspiracy theory…” Tucking a loose lock of black hair behind her ear, she clicks her tongue. “‘Perhaps some of these victims have more subtle damages than the doctors have so far noticed. Although many were too focused on managing their own vehicles, some claim to have seen strange things at the scene of the collisions. Ms. Justine Buchanan of Murray City told the _Gazette_ a tale worthy of horror-fantasy legend Stephen King’—”

“To paraphrase Nietzsche,” Shiro grumbles, “ethical journalism is dead, and we have killed it.”

“‘There was a person standing there, in the pillar of light’—that’s what the article reports her saying.” Mom keeps reading, but shoots Shiro a _Look_ like she agrees with his take on the absence of integrity in the piece before her. “‘He wasn’t standing at first, though. I went off the road, and after I crashed, I saw him getting up. Not like he was moving on his own, but like some invisible string was pulling him off the ground. He looked like a puppet; it was unsettling.’”

Lotor makes a small, throaty sound. Shiro can barely hear it, with Lotor’s hand still covering his mouth. Either way, Lotor’s eyes have gone wide. His cheeks have paled. He grips his own face as if suffocating himself. Not that demons necessarily _need_ to breathe when they don’t feel like it, but if he _did_ , Lotor would be relying on his nose alone.

“‘Then, the strangest thing I saw,’” Mom goes on, shoulders tensing and eyes narrowing dangerously. “‘All that light—it had surrounded him before. But it slimmed down into a beam. It looked like it was swirling around him, and then it disappeared into his mouth.’” Mom pauses, shuddering. Setting her jaw, she reaches behind her head, undoing the elastic that’s holding her messy bun in place. Her hair untwists itself, ponytail unfurling as she shakes her head in palpable disapproval. “Then, she tells the reporter how the young man vanished with a rushing sound, like wings.”

Shiro wanted to breathe again, but the air snags in his throat. Meanwhile, Lotor has the pallor of someone on the brink of passing out. So many possible questions come to Shiro’s mind, then fade away before he can put real words on any of them. So many things that he could ask, so many aspects of the situation that don’t make sense or that could speak to different potential explanations—but Shiro can only make himself say one thing:

“Who was he? The guy who owned the motorcycle—does it say his name?”

“I just saw it, hang on.” Mom scrolls for a hot second, then reads off, “Kogane. Keith Kogane, twenty-two, of New Marmora in Athens County.”

“Pack up.” Shiro splays one hand on the table so he won’t drive his nails into his palms like pinewood stakes through a Trickster’s heart. The other hand, he curls around his knee. His fingers tremble like they’re seizing up. Each breath comes to him like a flash, quick and shallow, until it feels like he isn’t catching any of them. Instead, Shiro feels like he could spit fire and venom—and he glares at Mom and Lotor, who haven’t started moving. Both of them watch him like they’re transfixed to the series finale of their favorite show.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Shiro drawls. “Did I _stutter_.”

“Kashi, why are you…” Mom shakes her head. “What’s happening?”

“Sure, I could leave you here until Mitch and Adam can pick you up—but that seems pretty rude, you think?”

“What do you mean by—”

“I _mean_ that we’ve got a job now, and I’m gonna do it—”

“We have suspicions, but not—”

“Somewhat more than that,” Lotor chimes in, shivering. “That narrative—it sounds like what happens when an angel takes their vessel.”

“Okay, Barbie, when we’re done? Remind me to ask you where all this shiny, alleged _angel_ knowledge of yours comes from—”

“Done with _what_ ,” Mom snaps, but she sounds more pleading than outraged. “Takashi _Sebastian_ Shirogane, you are not going _anywhere_ until you calm. down. and explain what you think is going on here. Start with why all it took to get you going was that _name_.”

“Because I _know_ him, okay—”

“He does,” Lotor adds. “Adam and I met Kashi’s little friend last autumn—”

“Yuki knows Keith, too. They met on the first hunt where Keith and I ran into each other.” As if it helps him make a point that he can’t verbalize right now, Shiro pushes back from the table and stands. “His name is Keith Yorak Kogane. His family all lives together—or most of them do, anyway. Mother, father, uncle and his husband, their son, the uncle who’s a widower. They raised Keith Galra Orthodox, but his dad’s mixed white and Japanese. Handy with a hex-bag, tarot deck, spirit board, and fifty some-odd other tools. Likes dogs, has a temper but it mostly comes from fear, stronger than he realizes, and he’ll be twenty-three in about six weeks. Five or six, something like that. He’s the biggest fan of Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton who I’ve ever met in my entire big, gay life.”

From the half-blank looks on Mom and Lotor’s faces, none of this explanation helps either of them understand. If anything, they stare at Shiro with even less comprehension than they had before. With a few solid tugs, he fixes his jacket’s collar. He sighs, letting his hands fall and hooking his thumbs over the edges of his jeans’ hip-pockets.

“Keith’s my _friend_ , okay? Like Lotor said. He’s been through a lot, he’s a little rough around the edges, but…” Squaring his shoulders, Shiro hopes that he looks _serious_ , not utterly ridiculous. “I promised Keith once that I would _never_ give up on him. That includes not up and abandoning him to the whims of angels, or faeries, or _oni_ , or _whatever_ we’re dealing with, which may or may not be currently _possessing_ him.”

“Not that… Darling, neither of us intends to question your intentions—”

“No, actually, I _am_ questioning my son’s intentions—”

“My _intentions_ , Mom? Are to get in Ariel, head down to New Marmora, and start sniffing around for clues about how to save my _friend_.”

“Takashi, I swear: if the next words out of your mouth are, ‘Let’s split up, gang’—”

“Why would I say that? Why would I _ever_ —when I’m not wearing the right ascot for it? Or _any_ ascot for that matter? And it’s a _stupid_ idea in the first place—”

“Well, you haven’t named your backup and you _are not_ going in alone—”

“ _Fine_ , Mom, I’ll take Lotor with me.” Shiro quirks his shoulders. Sooner they get this negotiated, the better. “He probably can’t touch some of the angel books without getting burned, right? So, letting him come with me gives him a way to contribute to the hunt.”

“Not that I’m exactly objecting to that plan, or that I don’t _want_ to help, but…” Wrinkling his nose, Lotor blinks up at Shiro with great, unspoken significance. “What about Adam?”

“Well, if you want to stay back here and let him dick you into the mattress, Barbie? Be my guest. Have you found the tickle-button on the back of his left thigh, yet?” Mostly, this gets Shiro sour-faced at, so he waves his hand at the empty air. As limp as he lets his wrist go, Shiro’s gesture unmistakably takes the shape of a cross. “ _Ego te absolvo_ and blah, blah, yadda. Have good sex. I’ll call Yuki if you don’t wanna come.”

“The same Yuki who still thinks you’re _dead_?”

“Yeah, well, it’s been a busy few days, hasn’t it—”

“True, I’m sure he’ll understand why you haven’t called yet—”

“Either way, I need to correct that ‘Fuckhead is still six feet under’ assumption for him sooner or later—”

“Also, erm.” Pursing his lips, Lotor huffs. “You don’t need to say the _‘ego’_ part, only the _‘te absolvo.’_ The subject of the verb is already included in its ending; that’s how the conjugation patterns work.”

“Yeah, that’s nice.” Folding his arms over his chest, Shiro lets himself slouch at the hips. “Are you gonna correct my Latin in the car, or are you staying behind?”

Despite the unimpressed expression, Lotor nods. “You’re terribly lucky, _migadi_ , that I so badly missed you and your particular brand of bullheaded shenanigans.”

“Love you, too. Mom?” Shiro looks to her. In his head, he maintains his attitude problem and relatively stiff upper lip. All it takes to make him wilt, though, is one glance from Mom while she looks dead-down-to-the-bones exhausted. “So, is this okay? I’m not alone. Lotor’s a demon, a powerful witch, and he apparently knows angels from a hole in the wall, which is more than we can say for the rest of us. We’ll get his knife when we get you to Adam and Uncle Mitch, and we’ll check in as often as you want. If that’s acceptable…?”

Mom inhales deeply, and she takes a moment to think it over. Shiro’s skin itches, badly, from the waiting—but finally, Mom relents and waves at him like she’s saying _by your leave._ “Text us every few hours,” she tells him. “And call Yukiharu on the drive down. See if he can’t come join you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The specific songs referenced/quoted in this chapter (aside from the ones that got named) are: Donna Summer’s “Macarthur Park”; John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Hurt So Good”; Queen’s “Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy”; and “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Personal reactions/interpretations
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
>   * Comments made with the [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta).
> 

> 
> The author reads and appreciates all comments, and gets back to all of them eventually, but may be slow to reply due to trying to rein in the ADHD/anxiety cocktail.
> 
> If, for any reason, you don’t want to receive a reply, just put, “whisper” near the start of your comment, and I’ll appreciate it without replying.
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> * * *
> 
> As ever, I’m also on Tumblr ( **[amorremanet](http://amorremanet.tumblr.com/)** , though not quite as often anymore), Pillowfort ( **[amorremanet](https://www.pillowfort.io/amorremanet)** ), Dreamwidth ( **[amor_remanet](http://amor-remanet.dreamwidth.org/)** ), Twitter ( **[amorremanet](https://twitter.com/amorremanet/)** ), and Discord ( **amorremanet#5500** ), and I always love talking about Shiro, hurt/comfort, gay shit, and Shiro.


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